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NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
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TORONTO \ 



NATIONALITY IN MODERN 
HISTORY 



BY 
J^'HOLLAND rose, LITT.D. 

FELLOW OF CHRIST'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 

READER IN MODERN HISTORY TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE 

CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE MASSACHtTSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY 



" Avoir fait de grandes choses ensemble, vouloir en 
faire encore, voil4 la condition essentielle pour 6tre un 
peuple." — Renan. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1916 

All rights reserved 



7R4 



Copyright, 1916 

By the MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1916 




MAY -4 lyie 

©CI.A427948 



PREFACE 

Lectures I- VIII of this series were delivered at Cambridge 
in the Michaelmas Term of 1915; and Lectures IX and X are 
based on those which I delivered in December last to the 
Historical Associations at Birmingham and Bristol. My aim ^ 
throughout has been historical, namely, to study the varied 
manifestations of NationaHty among the chief European 
peoples, before attempting to analyze or define it. That I 
have sought to do in Lecture VIII. It is noteworthy that 
only in recent times has NationaUty become a conscious and 
definite movement. Apart from the writings of Machiavelli, 
where that instinct figures dimly, it was not (I believe) 
treated by any writer before the year 1758. Then an anony- 
mous Swiss brought out a book entitled "Von dem Na- 
tionals tolze " (0/ National Pride), in which he discussed its 
good and bad characteristics. I have no space in which to 
summarize his work; but at some points it breathes the spirit 
of Schiller's Wilhelm Tell, the inner meaning of which I have 
sought to portray in Lecture III. 

I began these studies several years ago, and early in 19 16 
was about to complete them. Most of my conclusions have 
not been modified by the present war; but the questions dis- 
cussed in the later lectures arise out of that conflict. There, 
as elsewhere, I hope, my treatment has been as objective and 
impartial as present conditions admit. Lack of space has 
precluded a study of the lesser national movements in Europe 
and of all similar movements outside of Europe. I regret this 
latter omission because the growth of NationaHty in the 
United States and the British Commonwealths is developing a 
wider and cosmopolitan sentiment which makes for peace. 



VI PREFACE 

At present, however, we are confronted by Nationality of 
the old type; and to pass it by with sneers as to its being 
antiquated does not further the international cause. A 
careful study of past and present conditions is the first req- 
uisite for success in the construction of the healthier Euro- 
pean polity which ought to emerge from the present conflict; 
and criticisms of German Socialists such as will be found in 
Lectures IX and X, are, I believe, necessary if mankind is to 
avoid a repetition of the disastrous blunders of July, 19 14. 

The sense which I attach to the words "race," "people," 
"nation," "nationality," "nationalism," is, briefly, as fol- 
lows: For the reasons stated in Lecture VIII, I have rarely 
used the word "race," and then only as a quasi-scientific 
term. The word "people" I have generally used as implying 
a close sense of kinship; "nation" as a political term, desig- 
nating a people which has attained to state organization; 
"nationality" (in the concrete sense) as a people which has 
not yet attained to it; but I have nearly always referred to 
"Nationality," in the ideal sense, namely, as an aspiration 
towards united national existence. In Lecture IX I have 
used "Nationalism" to denote the intolerant and aggressive 
instinct which has of late developed in Germany and the 
Balkan States. 

My thanks are due to Professor Bury, Litt. D. Regius 
Professor of Modern History in the University of Cambridge; 
to Professor Deschamps of the Institut superieur de Com- 
merce of Antwerp (now resident in Cambridge) ; to Mr. G. P. 
Gooch, M. A., formerly Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge; 
and to Mr. A. B. Hinds, m. a., formerly Student of Christ 
Church, Oxford, for their valued advice and criticism. 

J. H. R. 

February, 1916. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 
LECTURE I 

THE DAWN OF THE NATIONAL mEA 

PAGE 

A survey of Europe through the centuries suggests the ques- 
tion: What has made States? — ^No national State in the 
Ancient Worid — The barbarian invasions split up Europe 
into tribal areas — Discords arising from struggles of 
Pope and Emperor — Was Dante's ideal in De Monarchid 
national? — Why national feeling emerged in England 
and France — Unifying forces at work in reign of Edward ■%■ 
III — Chaucer and the English spirit — The Hundred ' 
Years' War developed a national spirit in France — The 
influence of Jeanne d'Arc i 

LECTURE n 

*' VIVE LA NATION 

The work of the monarchy in helping on the union of France 
— New spirit in 179 1 — "If the King has escaped, the na- 
tion remains" — Influence of Rousseau on the develop- 
ment of French Nationality — Its manifestations in 
1789-91 — "Sovereignty resides in the nation" — The 
"federations" a consohdating force, e. g. in Alsace- 
Lorraine — The uprising against the invaders in 1792-3; 
finally it erred by excess; hence Bonapartism . . 18 

LECTURE m 

SCHILLER AND FICHTE 

German ideals in eighteenth century were rather international 
than national — Kant — Germany weak and attracted by 



viu TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

French Revolution — Schiller at first decried patriotism; 
so, too, Fichte, figured Europe as a Christian Common- 
wealth — Schiller's Wilhelm Tell (1804) struck the na- 
tional note — Significance of its message to Germans and 
Swiss — ^After Prussia's overthrow by Napoleon, Fichte 
deHvered his Addresses to the German Nation (1807-8) — 
Selfishness had ruined Germany; a renovated nation 
must restore her — ^National education and its influence 
on the events of 1813 34 

LECTURE IV 

THE SPANISH NATIONAL RISING 

Differences between the German and Spanish national move- 
ments — Aloofness of Spain and pride of her people — 
Excessive confidence of Napoleon in dealing with her — 
The rising of May- June, 1808, and alliance with Great 
Britain — Fury against him — ^Weakness and strength of 
provincial procedure — Efforts at reform partial and im- 
itative — The constitution of 18 12 short-lived — Influence 
of the Spanish resistance on European developments and 
the fall of Napoleon. 56 

LECTURE V 

MAZZINI AND YOUNG ITALY 

Thought determines the course of action — The Italian move- 
ment a struggle against the policy of division and subju- 
gation imposed in 181 5 — Italian parties: (i) Neo-Guelf, 
(2) Monarchist, (3) Mazzini and Young Italy — ^His pro- 
gramme of national unity (183 1) — Charm of his person- 
ahty — ^His faith in Italy's mission, after the failure of 
French individualism in 1789-93 — True patriotism need- 
ful in order to attain cosmopoHtan ideals, which other- 
wise are unattainable — Mazzini failed for his day — Will 
his ideals now be realized? 74 



TABLE OF CONTENTS ix 

LECTURE VI 

THE AWAKENING OF THE SLAVS 

PAGE 

The Slav character moulded by the life of the steppes — 
Russia profoundly stirred by Napoleon's invasion of 1 8 1 2 
— Patriotism soon diverted into reactionary channels — 
Friction with the Poles — Centrifugal tendencies of the 
Slavs — The South Slavs of Austria-Hungary awakened 
by Napoleon— The Kingdom of lUyria influenced the 
Serbs, who in 181 5 gained large rights from the Turks — 
Development of Serbia — The Russian Slavophiles and 
Panslavists — All Slavs excited by Balkan events of 
1875-6 — The Bulgars and their efforts — Beaconsfield's 
pro-Turkish poHcy — Russia's liberating campaign of 
1876-7 and the settlement of 1878 — Union of the two 
Bulgarias in 1885 93 



LECTURE VII 

THE GERMAN THEORY OF THE STATE 

Varied conceptions of the State — Ancient democracies re- 
quired very much from their citizens — So, too, the ab- 
solute monarchies of Europe — Frederick the Great was 
the Prussian State — ^His activities and stern resolve — 
Kant's gospel of duty — Fichte in 1804 exalted the State 
as furthering Kultur — His Spartan aims — In 1807-8, he 
assigned supremacy to the nation — His successor, Hegel, 
glorified the State as an absolute and all-pervading entity 
(1820, 1830) — Did he confuse it with the nation? — Ro- 
chau in Realpolitik (1853) affirmed: "The State is 
Power" — This theme developed by Treitschke, who de- 
manded the absorption of Saxony and of Alsace-Lorraine 
— His State morality; subordination of the people to the 
State Ill 



X TABLE OF CONTENTS 

LECTURE VIII 

NATIONALITY AND MILITARISM 

PAGE 

Necessary omissions from our studies; but clearly National- 
ity has made Europe what it is — Reasons for thinking 
that NationaKty does not depend on race or language — 
Examination of Hegel's "World-Spirit" theory — ^Na- 
tionaUty became a moulding force in 1789 — The family 
instinct of the French provinces made France a nation — 
Reaction against her aggressions in 1808-15 — Failures of 
sporadic Nationalism in 1848-9 — Successes of organized 
NationaHsm in 1859-70 — Militarism an outcome of the 
national and democratic instinct in 1792-3 — Armed de- 
mocracy (developed by Napoleon) routed the monarchs 
— Mihtarism began again with the national policy of Wil- 
helm I of Prussia in i860, and triumphed over Austria 
(1866), and France (1870) — ^Like Napoleon I, Kaiser 
Wilhelm II has misused national forces raised origi- 
nally for defensive purposes . . . . . 136 

LECTURE IX 

NATIONALISM SINCE 1 885 

Nationality a great constructive force up' to September, 1885, 
has since altered its character, witness the fratricidal 
attack of Serbia on Bulgaria, the failure of Greek aims 
in 1897, a-nd racial strifes in Macedonia — Russia's de- 
feats in the Far East emboldened the Central Empires, 
and in 1908 Austria annexed Bosnia — Support of Ger- 
many, Bismarck's defensive aUiance of 1879 with Austria 
thus became aggressive — Austro-German ambitions — 
The Pangerman and Navy Leagues pushed the Kaiser 
on — Germany's charge that the Entente Powers "en- 
circled" her — Chauvinism in Austria-Hungary, which 
probably prompted Bulgaria's attack on her Allies in 
June, 1913 — Significance of the alliance of the Central 
Empires with Turkey and Bulgaria . . • ISS 



TABLE OF CONTENTS xi 

LECTURE X 

INTERNATIONALISM 

PAGE 

Great wars have often produced efforts to mitigate or avert 
them, e. g. those of Grotius (1625) and of eighteenth- 
century thinkers — Kant in Perpetual Peace (1795) pro- 
posed, though doubtfully, a federation of free Republics 
— Reasons for deprecating the supremacy of any one 
State and requiring proportionate equaUty — Unwise or 
imreal efforts after 1815 — "Young Europe" (1834) — Or- 
ganized Nationalism overshadowed the InternationalCy 
which started in 1864 — Folly of the Paris Communists in 
1871 — Divergence of French and Slav "Internationals" 
from German, many of whom have been attracted by 
the Kaiser's commercialism — Proposals of the Interna- 
tionale in 1901, 1907, 1910 — Deadlock on Alsace-Lorraine 
Question (191 2) — Inaction of German SociaHsts at the 
crisis of July-August, 1914 — ^Temporary collapse of In- 
ternationalism — Reasons for hope in its revival . . i77 



NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 



NATIONALITY IN MODERN 
HISTORY 

LECTURE I 

THE DAWN OF THE NATIONAL IDEA 

It is well sometimes to do with the map of Europe at 
critical periods what a painter does with his canvas, stand 
away from it and view it with half-closed eyes so as to behold 
only the salient features. What is the impression produced 
by the Europe of the Roman Empire of 1800 years ago? 
Solidity and universaHty are its characteristics. Eight hun- 
dred years later the scene is changed to one of chaos. The 
attempt of the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire to achieve 
unity has failed and civilization is lost in a medley of little 
domains. By slow degrees these sort themselves out, like 
to like for the most part; and by the year 1600 the outUnes 
of large States are clearly defined, especially in the West of 
Europe. Italy and Germany are minutely divided; and the 
inroads of the Turks have worked havoc in the South-East. 
Still, Europe is settUng down on a new basis; and not even 
the Wars of ReHgion long delay the assorting process except 
in Germany. The political bioscope continues to shift imtil 
there emerge large blocks of territory which tend to absorb 
the smaller areas. The Napoleonic Wars and the series of 
modern wars beginning in 1859 complete this solidifying work; 
and only in the South-East of Europe do we find a great 
Empire splitting up into smaller parts. Elsewhere, the con- 



2 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

trary is the case; and in 1878-19 14 Europe consists of solid 
blocks, which stoutly resist every attempt to break them up. 
\/ To resume; in the old Roman times Europe forms a solid 
whole. In the fifth century it splits up into small areas; and 
the period of small areas and fleeting States continues far 
into the Middle Ages; but by slow degrees these minute sub- 
divisions lessen in number and increase in size; until, in the 
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the map of Europe 
acquires a clearness and consistency never known since the 
time of the old Roman Empire. First, there is unity; then 
chaos; then an approach to simplicity and solidity. 

If we inquire into the causes of these very striking changes 
we come to these general conclusions :\The unity of the Roman \ 
world was due to its conquest by a single State, which pos- 
sessed a far greater military and political efficiency than that 
developed by other peoples. Therefore they were absorbed 
by it, until, on the break up of that wonderful organism, there 
ensued utter confusion, the natural result of unchecked racial 
strifes. The chaos became semi-organic during the Middle 
Ages, and at their close another influence began to operate, 
which grouped together the units and brought them into 
ever larger masses. These masses are the modem States._ 
Now, what has been the influence most conducive to State- 
building? That, I hope, we shall discover in this course of 
lectures. 

This brief survey will have shown that some mighty in- 
fluence has been at work in the modern world far different 
from anything that was known to the ancients. In Europe 
and on its confines there was no State that was conterminous 
with a great people. Assyria, Persia, and Egypt held sway 
over several peoples alien to the ruling race; and the Mogul 
Empire was a mere conglomerate. But there was one ex- 
ception, small in extent but infinitely interesting. The Jews 
during some generations formed a single compact national 



THE DAWN OF THE NATIONAL IDEA 3 

State. With the possible exceptions of China and Babylon 
they are the first example of a nation in the modern sense. 
Their records show the rise of the family into the tribe, of 
the tribe into the nation; and for a time the nation was held 
together by a strong instinct of kinship. The union was 
sanctified and strengthened by reHgious rites and by a pro- 
found sense of consecration to the Deity. Thus there came 
about a sense of unity which held together a singularly stiff- 
necked, clannish people; and there grew up that spiritual and 
moral fellowship which has survived eighteen centuries of 
dispersion. True, the Jews did not long hold together polit- 
ically. But, despite the disruptive tendencies of their de- 
generate days, they remained and still remain one at heart. 
The consciousness of being "the chosen people" still unites 
them, whether they dwell in the mansions of Paris and 
New York, or vegetate in the slums of Warsaw and Lisbon, 
or practise their ancient rites in the valleys of Abyssinia. 
Israel is still a moral and religious unit, inspired by the most 
tenacious sense of kinship known to history. 

Elsewhere in the Ancient World there was no State that 
can be called national, at least not in Europe. The Greeks 
never achieved political union. Thrilled though they were 
by their legendary epic, and inspired at times by the worship 
of Zev? 6 iraveXKrivLO^ , they very rarely joined in defence of 
their peninsula. Only when the Persians covered the plains of 
Thessaly did the Greeks make common cause; and then the 
union was brief and doubtful. For all their scorn of other 
peoples as barbarians, for all their care in excluding non- 
Greeks from the Olympian and other great festivals, they 
often sided with aUens against their own kith and kin. The 
patriotic appeals of Demosthenes failed to unite them against 
Philip of Macedon; and they fell, because at bottom their 
political system was not national, only municipal. City 
fought with city; and never at the supreme crisis did the 



4 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

City-States effectively unite. The Greek polity stopped 
short at the city or the clan. Except in regard to religion, 
art and athletics it never attained to nationality.^ 

Very different is the history of Rome. Her people, though 
far less imaginative than those of Athens, possessed the 
political gifts needful for the upbuilding of a Commonwealth. 
Rome early absorbed other cities; she then absorbed the 
Samnites, the Greeks of South Italy and the Gauls of the 
North. After unifying Italy, she went far towards unifying 
the then known world. From the Clyde to the Euphrates, 
from the Tagus to the Rhine, she moulded diverse tribes and 
formed an almost universal State. As Professor Reid ^ has 
shown, she accomplished this wonderful feat largely by the 
grant of wide municipal liberties, thereby welding into her 
imperial system the City-States which Greek separatism had 
failed to unite. Besides tactful toleration in local affairs. 
Imperial Rome displayed a peculiar attractive power which 
drew aliens into her polity; and in this faculty of assimilation 
lay her chief strength. Vergil proclaimed that it was her 
mission to crush the proud and spare those who submitted. 
The latter process is more important than mere conquest. 
Indeed, the only real conquest is that which assimilates the 
conquered. All other triumphs are vain and evanescent. 
Now, Rome had this absorbing power to a unique degree. 
The Jews and Greeks were exclusive and intolerant towards 
Gentiles and barbarians. Not so the Roman. He brought 
the conquered within the pale; he adopted their deities,^ 

^The Amphictyonic Council was the only Pan-Hellenic institu- 
tion; but it rarely acted with vigor. Isocrates desired to unite all Greece 
with Philip of Macedon for the invasion of Asia; but Demosthenes and 
nearly all Athenians scouted the scheme. 

2 J. S. Reid, Municipalities in the Roman Empire. 

' See the complaint of Juvenal [III, 60] : 

'Jam pridem Syrus in Tiberim defluxit Orontes." 



THE DAWN OF THE NATIONAL IDEA $ 

he enrolled their warriors and made them proud of fighting 
under the eagles, until it seemed possible that tribalism 
would vanish from Europe and that the world would become 
Roman. 

It was not to be. Other barbarian tribes, obeying some 
unknown but potent impulse, burst into the imperial domain; 
and civilization reeled back into the tribal stage from which 
Rome had raised it. The political unity of Europe vanished; 
and the human race has never again been able to realize the 
homogeneity attained by Imperial Rome. During the Dark 
Ages the annals of mankind became pettily local. Neverthe- 
less, amidst those bewildering shiftings to and fro, racial 
settlements of the utmost importance were taking place. 
Indeed, since the year looo, few ethnical changes of any 
moment have occurred, if we except the Norman settlements, 
the incursion of the Turks and the expulsion of the Moors. 
With those exceptions the groupings of the European peoples 
of to-day are discernible at that date; and the course of 
events, especially during the last fifty years has tended to 
identify more or less closely the political frontiers with the 
bounds of the habitations marked out by the great European 
peoples during the long and obscure struggles of the Dark 
Ages. As will appear in the sequel, some peoples, possessing 
greater attractive or organizing power, have gained at the 
expense of others less gifted or energetic; but in their 
broad outUnes the great States of to-day recall those of the 
chief settlements consequent on the Wanderings of the 
Peoples. 

How came it that the binding influences of Christianity 
and the haunting memories of the old Roman Empire did 
not group together in a solid polity the barbarous tribes that 
then overran Europe? The triumph of Christianity over 
paganism was swift and complete; and even the proudest and 
fiercest of the barbarians venerated Rome and her laws. But 



6 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

during the Middle Ages the city which had united the Ancient 
World became the source of disunion. The successors of 
St. Peter contended for supremacy with the heirs of the 
Caesars, with results fatal both to the Papacy and to 
the Holy Roman Empire. Institutions which claimed a 
dominion as wide as Christendom were rent by schism 
and faction; and both lost in vitality owing to the intolera- 
ble strain. 

During the struggle the first glimmerings of national con- 
sciousness become visible. In their struggle for Temporal 
Power Hildebrand and his successors at the Vatican could 
rarely rely on armed support outside Italy. The wavering 
fortunes of the Empire were sustained in the main by Ger- 
mans. Yet the struggle never became national in the modern 
sense. The Popes could always range many a German duchy 
against its Emperor; and he embattled not a few Italian cities 
against the Vatican, even when the Lombard League formed 
its sure bulwark in the North. Thus, clashing claims of 
world-supremacy were sustained by forces that were not even 
national; and to this cross division of forces, as well as of 
ideals, the wretched welter of Germany and Italy in the 
Middle Ages may largely be ascribed. Weltpolitik cannot 
succeed unless its foundations are both extensive and soHd. 
Both Pope and Emperor sought to found their polities on a 
basis no less shifting than narrow. 

Against this perversion of a divine mission and of a na- 
tional duty the first great poUtical thinker of the Middle 
Ages uttered a solemn protest. Dante, no less a statesman 
and patriot than a poet and seer, protested against the 
schism to which Italy and Germany were a prey; and in the 
course of his protests he uttered words which foretold the 
future glory of the Roman people. The challenge to action 
rings through the verses in which he bewails the degradation 
of his land: — 



THE DAWN OF THE NATIONAL IDEA 7 

"Ah, slavish Italy! Thou inn of griefs! 
Vessel without a pilot in loud storm! 
No mistress of fair provinces, 
But brothel-house impure! 

Ah people! Thou obedient still shouldst live 

And in thy saddle let thy Cassar sit 

If well thou markedst that which God commands." 

And then he appeals to the Emperor, Albert I, to come and 
claim his due: — 

" Come and behold thy Rome, who calls on thee, 
Desolate widow, day and night, with moans — 
'My Caesar, why dost thou desert my side? 
Come and behold what love among thy people.'" * 

For these and the like utterances Dante has been dubbed 
a Ghibelline. He was more Ghibelline than Guelf; but 
in truth he was a farseeing patriot who sought to reconcile 
the Empure and the Papacy, thereby assuring peace to Italy 
and order to the world. 

Such is the theme of his chief political work, De Mo- 
narchid. It rests on the fundamental conception that the 
world, being a thought of God, is designed for unity, the 
attairmient of which is the chief aim of man. The human 
race never achieved political unity and peace except during 
the reign of the Emperor Augustus, at the time of the birth 
and life on earth of Jesus Christ. Various episodes of that 
life (even the trial by Pontius Pilate) are cited as proofs 
of His recognition of the Roman Empire. Further, the whole 
history of that Empire showed it to be the organism divinely 
ordained for promoting unity and peace: "The Roman 
people was ordained by nature to command." There must 
1 Dante, Purgatorio, Canto VI, 11. 76 et seq. 



8 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

be one such people; and Rome by her spirit, no less than 
by her exploits, proclaimed herself to be the executant of 
the divine will: "Who is so dull of mind as not by this time 
to see that by right of ordeal the glorious people gained 
for itself the crown of the whole world? " ^ What, then, has 
of late lost them the crown? Mainly, the conflict between 
Pope and Emperor. The striving of the Pope for temporal 
power has brought endless strife on the people which ought 
to be one at heart: "O blessed people! (Dante exclaims ^) 
O glorious Ausonia, if only he who enfeebled thy Empire 
had either ne'er been born, or ne'er been misled by his own 
pious purpose." This vigorous outburst is directed against 
Constantine, whose alleged donation of the Roman domains 
to the Papacy was claimed as the basis of the Temporal 
Power of that institution. 

Thus Dante, good son of the Church though he was, 
recognized her Temporal Power to be an evil, because it 
introduced strife where there ought to be harmony. Let 
the Pope be solely the vicar of Christ; let the Emperor wield 
the sword in the name of Christ. In no sense does the Em- 
peror derive his authority from the Pope.^ Each derives 
his authority from Christ: the Pope, in order to lead men 
to eternal life; the Emperor, to lead them to temporal felicity. 

By this teaching Dante hoped to heal the strifes which 
desolated Italy and Germany. The conflicting authorities 
of Pope and Emperor were to merge; then the Roman people 
would once more direct human affairs. The conception 
is no less imaginative than statesmanlike. Pope and Em- 
peror (i. e. in the main, Italy and Germany) were to work 
together for the welfare of mankind; but the guiding impulse 
must come from Rome, the divinely created source of religion, 
statesmanship, and armed might. 

1 Dante, De Monarchid, Bk. II, chs. 7) II• 
2 Bk. 11 (W^ fin. 3 Bk. Ill, passim. 



THE DAWN OF THE NATIONAL IDEA 9 

In pursuance of this theme Dante sought to revive the 
Holy Roman Empire, Christianizing its spirit, but keeping 
the initiative always with "the holy Roman people." In 
this sense, and this alone, is Dante an Italian nationalist. 
To me it seems that Mazzini in his essay "On the minor 
Works of Dante" read into the De Monarchid much of his 
own perfervid nationalism. But it is true that Dante's 
world-empire was to be Roman. Other peoples were to 
yield up their wills and act in conformity with the fiat of 
the Eternal City. This doctrine is not Italian nationalism, 
very far from it. It is a flash of the old Roman Imperialism 
focussed in a Christian lens. But here we find the source 
of the inextinguishable faith in Rome which nerved many 
Italian patriots, even when, like Mazzini, they rejected 
Roman clericalism. 

Dante, by ascribing a divine mission to the Roman people, 
exerted on the fourteenth century an influence not unlike 
that of the patriotic priest, Gioberti, on the mid-nineteenth 
century. Each declared the Romans and their descendants 
to be a chosen people, marked out by special gifts and con- 
secrated by divine decree. When people believe that, they 
can never be wholly enslaved. They have taken the first 
difficult step which leads, it may be through ages of torture 
and despair, towards political independence. In this sense 
Dante was the father of Italian nationalism. 

In one other respect Dante uplifted his people to an in- 
calculable extent. He taught them to wing their thoughts 
to the highest ecstasies in their mother-tongue. He delib- 
erately chose to body forth the holiest and most thrilling 
thoughts in the vernacular. Leaving other scholars to stalk 
on Latin stilts, he strode forth easily but majestically, using 
the language of the streets of Florence. He defended his 
choice in the work De Vulgari Eloquentid, which is the first 
conscious effort at nationalizing literature. 



lo NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

Other poets, notably Fazio degli Uberti (circa 1370), 
wrote canzoni more directly inspired by the national idea. 
But the instinct of the Italian people singles out Dante as 
the source of the Italian spirit. In the year 1844 Mazzini 
thus wrote of the mediaeval seer: — 

"The splendor of no other genius has been able to eclipse or 
dim the grandeur of Dante; never has there been a darkness so 
profound that it could conceal this star of promise from Italian 
eyes. ... As if there had been a compact, an interchange of 
secret h*fe between the nation and its poet, even the common people, 
who cannot read, know and revere his sacred name. The moun- 
taineers of Tolmino, near Udine, tell the travellers that there is the 
grotto where Dante wrote — there the stone upon which he used to 
sit; yet a httle while, and the country will inscribe on the base of his 
statue — 'The Itahan nation to the memory of its Prophet.'" 

Yes: Italy has become a nation, and she owes her nation- 
hood no less to the thrilling words of her seers than to the 
bravery of her soldiers. As will appear in the sequel, her 
union is due very largely to the thrilling thoughts of her 
gifted sons. Indeed, the unique interest attaching to the 
Italian movement is due to the inspiration which it drew 
from the noblest natures and thence spread through the 
masses. Italian nationality is no mechanical product, the 
result of warlike pressure from without, as was elsewhere 
often the case. It is rather a soul-politic than a body-politic. 

But if the genius of Dante inspired the leaders of thought 
in Italy, he did not and could not inaugurate a truly national 
feeling. The times were not ripe for that. Lawgivers, states- 
men, warriors, even inventors and mechanics, had to play 
their several parts before the common people in remote 
provinces could come into touch and feel the consciousness of 
a common life. As a rule, such an awakening is due to forces 
that compel a people to fall back on its reserves of strength; 



THE DAWN OF THE NATIONAL IDEA 1 1 

and these forces act most potently in time of war. It is 
probable that Italy and Germany would have arrayed them- 
selves in conscious hostility but for the cross currents that 
swept across them, diverting their fortimes into side channels 
and many confusing eddies. 

As it was, the national issue was first definitely posed 
between the Western peoples. Of these the Spaniards were 
almost wholly immersed in the internecine struggle with 
the Moors, from the long agony of which there emerged 
the fierce ballads of the Cid as a promise of many a deed 
of fanatical heroism in the more prosperous future. But 
France and England learnt to know themselves during the 
earliest of the great national struggles, the Himdred Years' 
War. The combatants were well matched. What England 
lacked in bulk she made up in the excellent organization of 
the monarchy bequeathed by William I and Henry II to the 
three Edwards. The French, superior in numbers, were 
weakened by feudal divisions and the strifes of the great 
nobles. Neither State, however, was much distracted by 
papal or other external claims; and thus a dispute arising 
out of Plantagenet ambition developed into a trial of strength 
between two warlike peoples. 

To trace in detail the growth of English and French na- 
tional feeling during the course of this long struggle is an 
impossible task. Limiting ourselves for the present to the 
islanders, we may note that the loss of Normandy, unity of 
law and administration, and the influence of firm government 
under Henry II and Edward I, had prepared the way for a 
imion of hearts between Norman and Saxon; but that union 
was cemented on the fields of Crecy and Poitiers. Fighting 
side by side against great odds, Norman knight and Saxon 
archer forgot their old feuds and merged their racial differ- 
ences in the pride of Englishry. Thenceforth signs abound of 
the victorious sweep of the new insular sentiment. In 1362 



12 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

proceedings in the Law Courts were ordered to be conducted 
in English; and in the following year our mother-tongue 
gained its Poitiers, when Edward III opened Parliament in a 
speech delivered in the vernacular. 

The union of Norman energy and Anglo-Saxon stubborn- 
ness in a single type is an event of unique importance. For 
when two or more hostile or jealous races coalesce, the result 
is a notable increase of mental vigor as well as of physical 
force. In England the reigns of Edward III, Elizabeth, 
James I and Anne are remarkable for the broadening of 
national life and also for literary triinnphs which express the 
fuller vitality of the time. A similar access of martial and 
literary energy marks the complete union of Spain under 
Ferdinand and Isabella, and that of France under Louis XIV. 
These and other cases reveal the connection that exists 
between politics and culture. Enlarge the outlook of peoples 
previously cramped and you quicken all their faculties. The 
result is frequently seen in an outburst of song, as happens 
with birds at mating time. It was so in England. The age 
of the Black Prince was also the age of Chaucer, Langland, 
■ and Wycliffe. The d^wn of English nationality coincide^ 

with the dawn of a truly English literature. 
4 There was something in the air as well as in Chaucer's 
genius which prompted him to write in English. French 
in ancestry, courtier by choice, and thereby condemned 
to speak mainly in French, he chose to write in the tongue 
of the street and mart. Moreover, not only the language, 
but the spirit of his chief work is thoroughly English. In 
their origin most of the "Canterbury Tales" are Italian, 
or, in a few cases, French; but Chaucer's presentment is 
thoroughly insular. The plot and the setting of the Tales 
are aggressively Cockney or Kentish. Through Mine Host 
the poet chaffs those of the company who prefer to mangle 
the French language rather than speak their own. As for 



THE DAWN OF THE NATIONAL IDEA 13 

the characters, they are such as might be found to-day at 
a village penny-reading. Perhaps it was Chaucer's cap- 
tivity in France which sharpened his insular patriotism; 
for no experience can be more nationalizing than a time 
spent as prisoner of war. Whatever the cause, Chaucer 
was a thorough Englishman. I think that we know him 
as well as, and perhaps love him better than, most men of 
our acquaintance. 

The writing of charming poems in what had before been 
a despised vernacular is a landmark in the national life. 
A people cannot attain to its full powers until its thoughts 
and aspirations are wedded to the mother-tongue, until that 
mother-tongue ceases to growl or stammer, or learns to sing. 
The difference in the life of the folk resembles that which 
comes during the growth of a youth, say, between fifteen 
and eighteen. The boy of fifteen is tongue-tied, awkward, 
perhaps a mere hobbledehoy. The youth of eighteen is a 
different being; he has felt the first thoughts of love; he has, 
perhaps, spoken them forth; he has become vocal. Possibly, 
too, those feelings are accompanied by others much the re- 
verse towards an individual of his own sex. If so, he knows 
what jealousy or hatred is. In short, he has begun to know 
himself. That deUcious time of life has its counterpart in 
the experience of a people. A crisis comes which sets the 
blood tingling and calls forth energies and aspirations 
hitherto latent. That is what happened to us at the be- 
ginning of the Hundred Years' War. The Black Prince, 
Chaucer, Wycliffe are the first complete manifestations of 
the native spirit. An indefinable energy, vigor, and splen- 
dor radiates forth from our people at that time, as it does 
from all peoples in the heyday of ripening manhood. So 
brilliant are the exploits of the Black Prince that Froissart 
regards England as the chosen abode of chivalry. Chaucer 
awakens her brain and her sense of beauty. Wycliffe speaks 



J 



14 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

to her soul. On all sides of her being the nation is awake. 
It was a keen historic sense which led Shakespeare to place 
in the mouth of men of that age the loftiest of patriotic 
paeans. Old John of Gaunt sings his swan-song in praise of 
England: — 

"This royal throne of Kings, this sceptred isle, 
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, 
This other Eden, demi-paradise. 
This fortress built by Nature for herself 
Against infection and the hand of war, 
This happy breed of men, this little world, 
This precious stone set in the silver sea." 

And Bolingbroke, on departing for banishment: — 

"Then England's ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu; 
My mother and my nurse, that bears me yet! 
Where'er I wander, boast of this I can. 
Though banish'd, yet a true-born Englishman." * 

The clash of war, which first made England know herseK, 
also summoned to conscious life the French nation. There 
again forces were at work, some promoting, others retarding, 
national unity. The centripetal influences were pride in the 
old Roman heritage, and the community of language and 
culture which it bequeathed; also the work of the clergy, 
the effects of the Crusades, and the efforts of the stronger 
monarchs to promote uniformity in law and the adminis- 
tration. Of the centrifugal influences the chief were of 
Frankish origin, the instinct to follow the chief rather than 
the King, which divided the realm amongst rival and greedy 
feudatories, each a law to himself and the source of law to 
his vassals. The Kings, allied with the Gallic populace, were 

1 Richard II, Act I, Sc. 3; Act II, Sc. i. 



THE DAWN OF THE NATIONAL IDEA 15 

waging a doubtful conquest with the Teutonic and feudal 
elements, when there burst upon this divided realm the 
Hundred Years' War. The natural result was the triumph 
of the invaders, under whose blows all that was left of the 
French dominions began to soHdify. The one possible rally- 
ing point, the monarchy, gradually gained ground over re- 
bellious feudatories; but, owing to the contemptible weakness 
of Charles VII, the struggle was still going against France, 
when the most remarkable figure of the late Middle Ages 
arose to vivify her people and confound their enemies. 
Jeanne d'Arc left her sheep at Domremy and came to drive 
forth the invaders. Her resolve to do battle against the 
Enghsh until Charles be crowned at Rheims was the more 
remarkable because legally she was not a Frenchwoman. 
She was born and hved in the Burgundian part of that border 
village. But in her meditations in the woods the high- 
souled maiden heard angelic voices that bade her "go into 
France"; and we may question whether with the religious 
impulse were not mingled the promptings of that national 
sentiment which has often spoken forth in the moving tones 
of a woman. The Baraks of a great crisis have rarely lacked 
their Deborahs; and a cause that deeply stirs woman's nature 
is on the road to triumph. Certain it is that the advent of 
Jeanne d'Arc meant infinitely much to the French; for it 
heartened them and bewildered their enemies; and this, not 
only for superstitious reasons, but also because Jeanne was 
France personified. No figure in history has more fully 
tj^ified a nation; and when a nation sees itseK thus incarnate 
its powers are doubled. 

From our present point of view it matters little that she 
was captured, was deserted by the French and barbarously 
burnt by the Enghsh. Those actions belong to the super- 
stition and cruelty of the time. What belongs to all time is 
the saintly heroic influence that radiated from her and 



i6 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

passed into the heart of her people. While Charles VII was 
trimming his sails to every breeze she uttered words instinct 
with patriotic wisdom: "As to the peace with the English, 
y/\ the only one possible is that they should go back to their 
I country in England." That is the national ideal, for the 
first time clearly defined. The French are one people and 
must possess the whole of France. There will be no peace 
while the islanders hold down part of France. The thought 
is very simple. It is the inspired common sense of a peasant 
girl gifted with vision. How much misery would mankind 
have been spared from that time to this if rulers and warriors 
had realized the truth, that every civilized nation, when 
thoroughly awakened to conscious life, must control its own 
destinies and will not long submit to be held down by another 
people. — "Let each nation be content with its natural bound- 
aries, and not seize the lands of its equally civilized neigh- 
bors." How simple! And yet the nation which claims to 
be at the summit of civilization has, even now, not learnt 
that rudimentary lesson in the doctrine of nationality. 

Notice,H:oo/ these words of Jeanne after her capture: "I 
know well mat these English will kill me, because they 
hope, after' my death,' ^^ain the Kingdom of France. 
But, were there 100,000 more of them, they shall conquer 
it never, never." There spoke forth clearly for the first 
time the soul of France, unconquerable in the fifteenth cen- 
tury as in the twentieth century. 

The head typifying France on the coins of the first Re- 
public was that of a beautiful actress who became transiently 
famous during the Terror. Certainly, the French genius is 
best personified by a beautiful, high-spirited woman. But 
when I think of France I always see the Maid of Or- 
leans. 

Italy — not merely the Italy of to-day, but of seven cen- 
turies — seems to resolve herself into the figure of Beatrice; 



THE DAWN OF THE NATIONAL IDEA 17 

or, in her many tragic phases, to be transformed into the sad 
yet serene features of Dante. 

The EngHsh people, surely, are not well represented by 
the conventional Britannia. Their character, ruggedly in- 
sular yet widely adaptable, and marked by a maturity that 
does not age, is perhaps best typified by the genial humanism 
of the countenance of Chaucer or of Shakespeare. 

The time is not yet ripe for limning the features of our 
enemies; and Russia is still somewhat of a sphinx. But 
that every nation has a distinct personaHty, who can doubt? 



LECTURE II 

VIVE LA NATION 

"La nation, c'est vous; la loi, c'est encore vous, c'est votre 
volonte; le roi, c'est le gardien de la loi." — Adresse de VAssemUte 
nationale au Peuplefrangais, Feb. ii, 1790. 

In the last lecture we found reasons for regarding Dante, 
Chaucer, and Jeanne d'Arc as the first exponents of the 
national ideal for their several peoples. But it is very doubt- 
ful whether that ideal was visible to the people at large, 
except in the chief crises of war. At such a time every man 
and woman who could think felt deep hatred of the foreign 
invader; and in this sense of repulsion for the foreigner 
nationalism of the cruder sort doubtless had its rise. Idealized 
though it might be by the loftier minds, yet in its lower 
forms it was little more than dislike of the aggressive stranger. 
This feeling it was which ranged French and English against 
one another in almost solid phalanxes. 

But the cross currents, which we have noticed as confusing 
the issues in mediaeval Germany and Italy, soon began to 
sweep across England and France. Both lands fell a prey to 
civil strifes which nearly effaced the nascent sense of unity. 
England, whose polity had far excelled that of other peoples, 
was soon distracted by religious and constitutional disputes 
lasting through most of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
turies. In that period the Elizabethan Era stands out as 
a smihng oasis; for then, during a brief space, England was 
almost one at heart; and the Spanish menace united English- 
men of all creeds in defence of their homes and liberties. 
That danger past, the island realm was again rent by schisms 

18 



VIVE LA NATION 19 

which the follies and perversity of the Stuarts prolonged until 
the Settlement of 1688. Consequently, English patriotism 
did not fully emerge until the times of Marlborough and the 
two Pitts. 

The fortunes of the French were not very dissimilar. 
After monarchy brought them within sight of political union 
there fell on them the Wars of Religion. The exhaustion of 
the people and the statecraft of RicheHeu and Mazarin 
finally brought about internal peace, but at the expense of 
popular liberties; and the reigns of Louis XIII and XIV, 
which consummated the external union of the French prov- 
inces, left the people themselves unfree and exhausted. This 
state of things (not urJike that of the English under Henry 
VIII) is unfavorable to the growth of patriotism, a virtue 
whose highest manifestation needs a large measure of civic 
freedom and an abounding vitality. The French prov- 
inces, brought together by Louis XIV, resembled a new 
plantation of shrubs in time of drought. They were sapless; 
their leaves drooped; they were starved by the royal oak 
hard by, "L'Etat, c'est moi," exclaimed the monarch; and 
it was true during his reign, when patriotism centred in the 
person of the King. A political catechism, drawn up for the 
training of his grandson, the Duke of Burgundy, stated that 
the King represented the entire nation, which had no cor- 
porate existence apart from him.-^ That was correct. During 
the long interregnum of the States General (1614-1789) 
the only bond of union was the royal administration; and the 
edicts of the Royal Council of Ministers formed at best only a 
partial protection against feudal injustice and provincial 
inequalities. The people cried out for efficient government, 
which could come only with a close and effective union of all 
classes and provinces. Their cry finds expression in many of 

^ "La nation ne fait pas corps en France; elle reside tout entiSre dans 
la personne du roi." 



20 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

the cahierSf or writs of grievances, drawn up in the spring of 
1789. The Commons of Beauvais demand — "an invariable 
rule in all parts of the public administration and public order, 
that is to say, a constitution. ... It is because France has 
never had one that her administration has been subject to 
ceaseless changes and she herself has been in danger." So 
again a village near Metz writes: "May all your subjects, 
Sire, be made truly French by the Government, as they 
already are by the love which they feel for their King." 
Again: "Your peoples seek refuge at the foot of your throne 
and come to seek in you their tutelary deity." ^ 

These and many other similar assertions prove that France 
had no constitution (though Burke denied it) and that she 
fervently desired to achieve in the sphere of law and adminis- 
tration the national unity of which she was by this time con- 
scious. That Louis XVI should make her effectively a nation 
was at first the desire of all; and even when he egregiously 
failed, and the National Assembly seized the reins from his 
nerveless hands, the old instinct of regarding the King as the 
keystone of the national arch for a long time survived. At 
the news of his flight towards the eastern frontier at mid- 
summer, 1 79 1, the dismay of very many Frenchmen almost 
resembled that which fell on the Peruvians when Pizarro and 
his handful of desperadoes seized the sacred person of the 
Inca. Such were the feelings of an ofl&cial in a French village, 
who, on learning that Louis XVI had fled, exclaimed to a 
better educated acquaintance: "Alas! What shall we do? 
The King has escaped." The nascent consciousness of the 
new age flashed forth in the reply: "Well! If the King has 
escaped, the nation remains. Let us consider what to do." 
France did consider; and, after a time of compromise and 
hesitation, she decided that the only thing to do with a King 

* Archives parlementaires, III, 299; VI, 24, 318. See too Sorel, L' Europe 
et la Revolution frangaise, I, p. 187. 



VIVE LA NATION 21 

who desired to run away was to dethrone him. Thereafter 
the idea of the nation was paramount; and, despite the 
triumph of reaction in and after 1815, it has been paramount 
ever since. 

The delay of the French in aboHshing the old monarchy 
is somewhat surprising, if we remember the ardor with 
which their leading thinkers had adopted the political theories 
of Rousseau. The reader who peruses his chief work, Le 
Contrat Social (1762), may not at first perceive the importance 
of the national idea. But that idea is fundamental to his 
whole treatise. The dominant notion of the work is of a 
contract or compact by which men, when emerging from 
savagery, form themselves into a civil society. Rousseau, 
with the eye of faith, beholds them frame an agreement as 
free men and equals; and by this mystic contract, which may 
or may not have actually happened, they become citizens and 
form a State. It matters not (says Rousseau) that the exist- 
ence of the social contract cannot be proved. He takes it for 
granted, and so do all his followers. 

Now, this explanation of the rise of civil society, though 
it is altogether fanciful, has exercised a potent influence. 
It lies at the root of the early Socialism; and it also helped 
on the national idea. Take this statement of Rousseau: 
"Before examining the act by which a nation elects a King, 
it would be fitting to examine the act by which a nation be- 
comes a nation." ^ That act is the social contract, which he 
then examines. When the union takes place, the result is a 
body politic, a respublica. Men who before were separate 
units are now citizens. He terms their association in its 
passive aspect a State (a use of the term which is open to 
grave objections). But he applies the term "sovereign" to 
the body poHtic when it is active. Thus, according to 
him, the whole body of citizens, when at rest, forms the 
^ Contrat social, Bk. I, ch. 5. 



22 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

State; ^ when it makes laws it is "the sovereign." For pur- 
poses of convenience or efficiency it may choose a man from 
one family to become ruler; but his powers always remain 
subordinate to the real sovereign, the people.^ 

Again, when they have decided on a law or any course of 
action, their will is final. The "general will," as he calls it, is 
the ultimate court of appeal/ He declares it to be inalienable, 
indivisible, impeccable. Before this quintessence of negations 
all other authority, especially that of the Church and of 
privileged Orders, must bow down, so that there may be no 
divisions in the body politic. It must be compact in order to 
be supreme; and that supremacy must have no Umits. The 
newly formed nation may make use of a legislator to draw 
up laws; but even then its authority is dominant. 

Now, in this sweeping claim we have the foundation, not 
only of modern democracy, but also of nationality in a com- 
plete and conscious sense. The influence exerted by Rousseau 
on the development of the national idea has not, I think, been 
sufficiently emphasized. Every student knows that Le 
Contrat Social is the source of French democratic notions; 
but that work is equally the fountainhead of modern na- 
tionalism. Before Rousseau, writers on government and law 
had been comparatively little influenced by the idea of the 
nation. Montesquieu, writing only some fourteen years be- 
fore Rousseau, scarcely mentions the nation. He sometimes 
seems to feel his way towards that idea as influencing the 
character of laws ; but only in that particular. It was reserved 
for Rousseau to set forth the national idea with a force and 
cogency which opened up a new era both in thought and 
deed. 

* Again, Bk. II, ch. lo: "It is the men that constitute the State." 
2 Dante, in the De Monarchid, proclaimed this truth: "For citizens 
do not exist for the Consuls, nor the nation for the King; but, on the 
contrary, the Consuls for the citizens, the King for the nation." 



VIVE LA NATION 23 

The Swiss thinker not only gave birth to the idea of the 
nation, but he endowed it with the strength of an infant 
Hercules. The French people could scarcely have achieved 
the miracles of the new age had they not been doubly in- 
spired. The notion of liberty, doubtless, was the chief im- 
pulse urging them forward; but with it there then worked the 
powerful feeling of nationahty. For the first time in their 
history all Frenchmen reaUzed their essential oneness. That 
is a unique occasion in the life of a people. We know what 
it meant from our experience in August, 1914. Then, for 
the first time in our history, the peoples of the whole of the 
British Empire were enthusiastically of one mind; and the 
mighty unison was not marred, only emphasized, by a few 
thin discordant pipings. Much the same was it in the France 
of 1789. Resolute in her quest for Uberty, she was nerved by 
the consciousness that practically all her children were one at 
heart. From the cramped sphere of provincialism they rose 
by one bound to the far loftier plateau of nationahty. There 
they breathed the pure air of freedom and were exhilarated by 
contact with others whom they had deemed half foreigners 
and now found to be Frenchmen. The results of this double 
inspiration were portentous. Relatively to the still torpid 
peoples of the Continent, the Frenchman of the Revolution 
was a superman. 

After that brief time of exhilaration, which inspired Words- 
worth and Coleridge with some of their best work, the then 
allied ideas of liberty and nationality were destined soon to 
come into collision, with results disastrous to the cause of 
progress. We who are living amidst a cataclysm such as the 
world has never known can realize the extent of the disaster; 
and we find it difi&cult to understand the buoyancy of heart, 
the vigor in action, of the year 1789, when the two powerful 
principles. Liberty and Nationality, pulled together. Then 
the human race experienced the spring tide of achievement. 



24 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY . 

May it be the lot of us, who now toil through the dead time 
of the neap tides, to be borne ahead once again on that 
bounding flood! 

The dominance of the national idea in the early part of 
the French Revolution is obvious at many points. Very 
significant is the title assumed by the Tiers Etat (Commons) 
of the States General. That body, hitherto divided into three 
distinct Orders, had not met during 175 years: and the Com- 
mons desired to break with the past. After long deliberations 
as to various cumbrous titles that had been proposed, an 
obscure member called out: "Assemblee nationaleJ' *'Yes, 
yes," they all cried; and the motion was carried, despite the 
grave fears of Mirabeau and others, who foresaw its destruc- 
tive effect on the monarchy. The name, indeed, recalled the 
ambitious claim of Sieyes in his pamphlet Qu'est-ce que le 
Tiers Etat, that the Commons formed the nation; the Com- 
mons (said he) furnish all the productive classes, from profes- 
sors to lacqueys; therefore they are the nation. This term he 
defined thus: "a body of associates living under a common 
law and represented by a single legislature." The definition 
is utterly defective because mechanical; it would include 
such cases as the peoples of the old Holy Roman Empire, 
or of the Indian Empire of to-day where there is no real 
unity of sentiment. But this cold, mechanical definition 
inspirited the deputies of France to seek for a single legisla- 
ture; and so what had been merely the unprivileged Order 
of the ancient States General became the National Assembly, 
the organ of the general will (June 17, 1789). In vain did 
Louis XVI seek to force the deputies back into the three 
disthict Orders. In vain did he declare that if they could 
not agree, he alone would effect the welfare of his peoples. He 
spoke the language of the past. No longer were they diverse 
peoples sheltered by his care. The thinking part of France 
now realized that the nation existed apart from him. Such, 



VIVE LA NATION 25 

too, was the significance of the famous Tennis Court Oath of 
June 20, when the deputies, without a single reference to 
the King, swore never to part until they had made a constitu- 
_Jion, 

The consequences of this change of outlook were momen- 
tous. Even in the first and very moderate draft of the Rights 
of Man, which Mounier presented to the National Assembly 
on July 27, there is this significant clause: ''The principle of 
complete sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No 
corporation, no individual, can exercise authority which does 
not emanate expressly from it." 

The essence of the Revolution hes in those words. They en- 
throne the nation and dethrone the King of France. Thence- 
forth he becomes "the hereditary representative," as he is 
often termed; while all public bodies are subjected to the 
nation. The Roman Catholic Church is forced to acknowl- 
edge the supremacy of the State; and the abolition of aU 
bodies, like the old Parlements, which contest that suprem- 
acy, is a foregone conclusion. With the Parlements vanish 
the Provinces and all their local exemptions and rights. From 
Brittany to Provence, from French Flanders to Spanish 
Roussillon, there is a clean sweep of all the local privileges 
which had fettered the action of the old monarchy; and in 
the spring of 1790 France stood forth united, unshackled, as 
she never had been. Against myriads of local or social abuses 
which had defied the absolute monarchy, the nation forthwith 
prevailed. Some of its early champions sought to moderate 
its zeal. Among them, Mounier endeavored to arouse the 
local feeling of Dauphine, where he and the provincial Estates 
had exercised a paramount influence. But now throughout 
France there was but one cry: "We are not provincials; we 
are Frenchmen"; and before the cry "Vive la Nation" down 
went all the walls of privilege and local custom. 

The resistance which Mounier offered in Dauphine served 



26 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

to inaugurate those federations of towns and villages which 
helped on the levelling process. The first of these unions of 
citizens with those of neighboring towns took place at 
fitoile on the Rhone, in Dauphine, in November, 1789. There 
the townsfolk and peasants assembled, some 12,000 strong, 
fully armed as National Guards, and took the following oath: 
*'We, soldier-citizens of both banks of the Rhone, fraternally 
assembled for the public welfare, swear before high heaven, 
on our hearts and on our weapons devoted to the defence of 
the State, that we will remain for ever united. Abjuring every 
distinction of our provinces [Languedoc and Dauphine], 
offering our arms and our wealth to the fatherland, for the 
support of the laws which come from the National Assembly, 
we swear to give all possible succor to each other to fulfil 
these sacred duties, and to fly to the help of our brothers of 
Paris, or of any town of France which may be in danger, in 
the cause of hberty." ^ This episode is of high significance. 
It sounded forth the call to national unity on behalf of the 
peasants and small traders; and, throughout the next eight 
months, similar federations of districts or Departments 
helped to abohsh provinciaHsm. The climax was reached in 
the national Festival of Federation, held in the Champ de 
Mars on July 14, 1790. A spectator, the denationalized 
German baron, "Anacharsis" Clootz, pointed the moral of 
the episode by a reference to the mass meetings of Celtic and 
Frankish warriors yearly held on that spot: "It carries you 
back two thousand years by an indefinable tone of antiquity: 
it carries you forward two thousand years by the rapid 
progress of reason, of which this federation is the precocious 
and delectable foretaste." Certainly these federations helped 
to brand on the French the feeling of indissoluble oneness. It 
is easy to pass a law for political imion; it is a far more difficult 
thing to secure a union of hearts. Our Union with Ireland in 
^ Hist, parlementaire, IV, p. 3. 



VIVE LA NATION 27 

1801 is an example of the former; the French Departmental 
System of 1790 achieved the latter, because the people them- 
selves at once registered the edict of their legislators. Thence- 
forth Celtic Brittany, the half-Flemish north, the half- 
Spanish Roussillon, and ahnost wholly German Alsace threw 
in their lot for ever with France. 

Yes, for ever. This present war is in part the outcome of 
this resolve of Alsace and North-east Lorraine to be French, 
not German. Whether Germany might not have won over 
the Alsacians if her treatment had been less brutal is an 
open question. But the outcome is that Alsace has never 
been Germanized, and that a province, which is almost 
entirely Teutonic by race, is still almost entirely French 
at heart. It was the magical influence of the great idea 
incarnate in the France of the Revolution which won that 
heart for the French nation. 

One of the distinctive features of those federations of 
1790 was the exaltation of law. It is rather difficult in Eng- 
land to imagine rustics and small shopkeepers assembling 
in tens of thousands for the glorification of law. Generally, 
when they assemble in large numbers it is for the opposite 
purpose. But, when one remembers that in France the old 
feudal and royal edicts had been the detested decrees of a 
class or of a domain, one can see why the populace hailed the 
dawn of a regime of truly national law. For by 1790 law 
was the same for all classes. It had swept away the dis- 
tinctive Orders. It had abolished the old game laws, corvees, 
gabelles, and other means of oppression; and recently it had 
mapped out France in Departments and smaller self-govern- 
ing areas, with nearly 4,300,000 ''active" citizens, to whom 
fell the duty of electing all the officials. Thus, law had be- 
come what Rousseau had declared it ought to be, the expres- 
sion of the general will. Therefore it occupied a place in the 
new political trinity. ''The Nation, the King, the Law,'* 



28 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

such were the sacred entities in the new Order. — ^The Nation, 
the source of all political energy; the King, merely its first 
officer; the Law, its channel. 

Every feeHng that makes the heart of man beat high 
conspired to make those federations scenes of inspiration 
and strength. They were the social contracts of the young 
democracy. Imagine in the square of the town or village 
an altar of green sods erected to la patrie; the patriarch of 
the village, or else the cure, administers the patriotic oath; 
children dressed in white are taught what it means; and the 
day ends in dances and merry-making. At one village in 
the Cevennes, where reUgious passions previously ran high, 
the cure and the Protestant pastor meet and embrace at 
the national altar; then the Roman CathoHcs conduct the 
Protestants to church and listen to the pastor's address; 
next the Protestants conduct the others to their church and 
hear the words of the cure. 

On other federative groups there descended the genius of 
patriotic doggerel. We read of one occasion when the cure 
composed verses on the spot and also chanted a Hymn to 
Liberty; whereupon the mayor felt moved to reply in stanzas, 
the purport of which was undiscoverable. Worthy folk! 
You typify French patriotism at its loftiest pitch. Did fate 
permit you to see the ghastly sequel? 

In view of all the scenes that followed, it is not surprising 
that Thomas Carlyle poured a douche of his cold northern 
sarcasm on all that southern demonstrativeness. But, after 
all, were those federation festivals merely "mighty fireworks" 
or a ''grand theatricahty"? Surely they were something far 
deeper than that. The sensitive, impressionable Gauls 
need to visualize their political creed; and they hold it all the 
more strongly for having exulted about it. 

The strength of the national instinct appeared in grim 
guise when war broke out between France and the German 



VIVE LA NATION 29 

Powers. The causes of that war do not concern us here. 
What concerns us is that it was a measuring of strength 
between an armed nation on the one side and two artificial 
though well-discipHned States on the other. The French 
Revolutionists had no doubt as to the issue. Ill-armed and 
drilled though they were, they believed in their power to 
overcome the professional armies drilled in the school of 
Eugene and Frederick. Brissot, the beUicose wire-puller of 
the Girondin group, desired to disguise some French soldiers 
near the frontier as Austrians to sack and burn French vil- 
lages in order to hurry on the rupture; and on a far higher 
plane, Vergniaud, the great Girondin orator, appealed to 
the National Assembly to commence a crusade which would 
hberate other peoples still unfree. Even so moderate a 
thinker as the Swiss publicist. Mallet du Pan, prophesied 
in the Mercure de France, in January, 1792, that Austria 
and Prussia would be defeated unless they could emblazon 
on their banners the device, 'Hhe Charter of the Nations"; 
for that alone could fitly oppose the watchword on the lips 
of the hosts of France, "The Rights of Man." ^ Of course, 
the German Powers did not adopt Mallet's advice. Bruns- 
wick's manifesto, issued at Coblentz in deference to the 
emigres, laid stress on the restoration of royalty in France and 
the punishment of all rebels. 

This was the first of the many blunders of the German 
Allies in 1792-3. From the outset they exasperated French 
national feeling, when their aim should have been to separate 
the moderates from the extreme Jacobins then in power at 
Paris. They ruined the French monarchy which they came 
to rescue; for they identified the cause of royalty with that 
of the invaders who were coming to partition France. 

After the fall of the French monarchy, in August, 1792, 
the national idea acquired a force never known before. Pre- 
1 Mallet du Pan, Mems., I, 249. 



30 NATIONALITY IN MODERN fflSTORY 

viously it had been confused by the lingering sense of devo- 
tion to the King and Queen. But, after the overthrow of 
the monarchy the issue was clear. French democracy and 
nationality were ranged against the German invaders and 
royalism; and the French were compelled to put forth all 
their strength and energy. In August and September, 
1792, they had practically no Government; the exchequer 
was empty; credit had vanished; and the armies were for a 
time leaderless. But it is in such straits that patriotism 
becomes a burning force that shrivels up quibbling factions 
and kindles boundless energy. Only when a nation is stripped 
of all external aids and is faced with absolute ruin does it 
discover its reserves of strength. If they are utilized in time 
it may encounter defeats, but it will not perish. The spirit 
which then nerved France is finely expressed in the appeal 
of the young poet, Andre Chenier: *' All ye who have a father- 
land and know what it means; ye for whom the words 'to 
live free or die' mean something; ye who have wives, children, 
parents, friends for whom ye would conquer or die — ^how long 
shall we speak of our liberty? . . . Come forth. Let the 
nation appear." 

It did appear — an armed nation. Service in the National 
Guards had, from the beginning of the Revolution, been 
one of the recognized duties of citizenship. No definite 
decree declared it to be either universal or compulsory; 
but the Constitution of 1791 laid it down that all "active 
citizens" were National Guards. The National Guards 
were merely citizens called to uphold the force of the State. 
For the present they did not form an organized force. ^ They 
therefore held a rather indefinite position. In principle 
every citizen was a soldier; only he was not drilled. Prob- 
ably this vague state of things resulted from the conflict of 
opinion which had broken out in the National Assembly 
* Constitution of 1791, ch. V, § 4. 



VIVE LA NATION 31 

during the debates of December, 1789, on military service. 
Dubois Crance, a strong democrat, insisted on universal 
setvice: "I tell you that in a nation which desires to be free, 
which is surrounded by powerful neighbors and harassed 
\by factions, every citizen ought to be a soldier, and every 
k)ldier a citizen, if France is not to be utterly annihilated. . . . 
How is it possible to make a man march forth to battle whose 
indolence has driven him into the ranks . . . who in fact 
has sold his liberty for a price, side by side with the man who 
has taken up arms to defend liberty? ... It is necessary 
to estabhsh a truly national conscription, which should in- 
clude every one from the second man in the Kingdom down 
to the last active citizen." The Due de Liancourt, Mira- 
beau, and others resisted this proposal as contrary to the 
principles of hberty and of the Rights of Man, besides being 
prejudicial to a complex industrial society; and the Assembly 
decided in favor of voluntary enHstment for the regular 
army; but it did not impose any rule respecting the National 
Guards.^ 

When war seemed imminent in the early part of 1792 
many thousands of National Guards volunteered for service 
at the front to fill up the gaps in the regular army caused 
by desertion. Consequently the armed forces of France were 
in a chaotic state at the beginning of the war with the Ger- 
man Powers. Great efforts were made in July, 1792, to 
attract more volunteers. The alarm gun on the Pont Neuf 
was fired once an hour. Bands paraded the streets. Speeches 
were deHvered at the recruiting tents; and thousands of 
patriotic youths at once enlisted. If we may credit the very 
critical estimate of von Sybel, these efforts produced Httle 
result. He says that only 60,000 recruits were forthcoming 

^Jung, Dubois-Crance, I, pp. 16-28, quoted by Morse Stephens, 
French Rev., I, 383; Proces Verbaux de I'Assemblee Nationale, IX, X, Dec. 
12 and 16. 



32 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

between July ii and September 20. It is also well known 
that the French success at Valmy was decided by the steadi- 
ness of the troops of the old royal army, and still more by the 
timidity of the Duke of Brunswick, who never pressed home 
his attack. 

All this may be granted; and the admissions somewhat 
dim the glamor of those days. Yet it is undeniable that 
the enthusiasm which the volunteers brought to the front 
was a weighty factor in determining the issue on the hill 
of Valmy. All the life and energy were on the side of the 
French. Experience and mechanical discipline were ranged 
under the banners of Prussia; and in the few moments when 
the issue seemed doubtful the mighty shout of "Vive la 
Nation" rooted the French to the earth and carried doubt 
and dismay to the hearts of the invaders. Well might Goethe, 
who was present at the German headquarters, declare that 
that day inaugurated a new epoch in the history of the 
world. That was true. It inaugurated the era of militant 
democracy. 

Subsequent events served to dull democracy and quicken 
miUtancy. The contrast between the political chaos at 
Paris and the conquering march of the French into Holland, 
Germany, and Italy was so sharp as to become a grave 
danger to an impressionable people. Unable to achieve 
political liberty at home, they overpowered all opposition 
abroad; and thus the very men who had hailed the war of 
1792 as a crusade on behalf of the liberty of enslaved peoples 
were soon drawn into methods inconsistent with their polit- 
ical principles. In the constitution of 1791 they declared 
solemnly that the French nation would never undertake a 
war for the sake of making conquests. Yet the constitution 
of 1795 declared that all lands up to the Rhine and the 
Alps were thenceforth an integral part of France. This 
solemn declaration, that France intended to fight on until 



VIVE LA NATION 33 

she gained her "natural limits," was an event of sinister im- 
port, preluding two decades of war; for Waterloo was the 
final retort to the French claim for the Rhine and Alps. 

How are we to explain that extravagant claim? In part, 
of course, by that luckless statement of Caesar that those 
were the boundaries of Gaul. But the new Gospel of Nature 
here reinforced the old Caesarism. Rousseau in his essay, 
"A Treaty of Perpetual Peace," urged that natural features, 
such as mountains and rivers, seemed to mark out the bounds 
of the nations of Europe; and (he added) "one may say that 
the political order of this part of the world is in certain re- 
spects the work of nature." This incautious utterance of 
the master, which subordinated men's feelings to the lie of 
the land, was exceedingly useful to his followers. In Novem- 
ber, 1792, when the French desired to annex Savoy, Bishop 
Gregoire, in his report on that topic, made use of similar 
arguments. As a certain number of Savoyards petitioned 
for union with France, he insisted that this was their universal 
desire; and he then stated that "the order of Nature would 
be contravened if their Government was not identical [with 
ours]." The turn of the Belgians came next, early in 1793. 
As for the Germans of the Rhineland, they were not consulted 
at all. And thus it came about that the national impulse 
in France, which up to 179 1 promised to link all free peoples 
in a friendly federation, soon degenerated into a warlike and 
aggressive impulse, the parent of rapine abroad and of 
Caesarism in France herself. 



LECTURE III 

SCHILLER AND FICHTE 

"The first original and truly natural frontiers of States are un- 
questionably their spiritual frontiers." — ^Fichte, Addresses to the 
German Nation, No. XII. 

It is difficult now to realize the divisions and helplessness 
of Germany in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. 
Split up into some three hundred different domains, for 
which the Holy Roman Empire provided no effective bond 
of union; distracted, too, by the endless rivalry of the chief 
States, Austria and Prussia, the Germans seemed doomed 
to subservience to their better organized neighbors. The 
energizing and new grouping of these torpid fragments was 
the greatest poUtical event of the nineteenth century. 

Before its commencement, there was no desire for close 
union on a national basis. The ideals of the leaders of Ger- 
man thought were international. Very characteristic are 
the words penned by the philosopher Kant, at Konigsberg, 
in his tractate. Perpetual Peace, 1795. ''If Fortune ordains 
that a powerful and enlightened people should form a Re- 
public — ^which by its very nature is inclined to perpetual 
peace — this would serve as a centre of federal union for 
other States wishing to join, and thus secure conditions of 
freedom among the States in accordance with the idea of the 
law of nations." 

In that passage Kant expressed the aspirations of his age 
for a federative and pacific union of nations. The idea had 
been cherished in France among the more reasonable of the 
Girondins, and found expression in the hope that neighbor- 

34 



SCHILLER AND FICHTE 35 

ing States would form Republics which would link on to 
France and gradually extend the bounds of Uberty. The 
German thinker warmly adopted this programme and in- 
cluded it among the conditions conducive to the aboUtion of 
war. If it had come about, the world would have taken a 
long stride forward towards the international ideal. In that 
case France would have passed quickly through the national 
phase, impelled onwards towards a far loftier ideal, that of 
ministering to the needs of humanity at large. The years 
1 79 1-2 formed, perhaps, the most favorable opportunity 
in that direction that the world has ever known. For at that 
time Europe was in a transition stage. With the exception 
of England and France, the peoples had not yet awakened 
to full political consciousness. True, they had thrilled at the 
news of the French Revolution; but the first message that 
it sent forth from Paris was international. The motto — 
*' Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" — was for all peoples on 
equal terms; and all seemed likely to press forward to the 
goal, without the jostling which NationaHsm soon engen- 
dered. In 1792-4 there was a chance that the Germans of 
the Rhineland would accept the French connection, if it 
were really fraternal and not too paternal. At first the 
German reformers fraternized with the French troops. That 
eminent savant, Forster of Mainz, went up to some French 
National Guards then in garrison in his city, and exclaimed — 
"Long live the Republic!" to which there came the dis- 
couraging reply, "She will live very well without you." 

The incident is characteristic of the superiority then 
affected by the French over the divided and benighted 
Germans. That feeling had long permeated the Parisian 
factions that desired a war of propaganda. So far back as 
October, 1791, the first leader of the Girondins, that rest- 
less wire-puller, Brissot, had attacked the German Powers 
in the most provocative terms, and his colleague, Isnard, 



36 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

fired off the following salvos on November 29: "A people 
in a state of revolution is invincible. . . . Let us tell Europe 
that, if the Cabinets engage the Kings in a war against the 
peoples, we will engage the peoples in a war against the 
Kings" — this, too, at a time when the Austrian and Prus- 
sian monarchs had withdrawn their former veiled threats 
of intervention, to which, indeed, they had scant means 
of giving effect. Central and Southern Europe were so 
wretchedly weak that the foremost pubhcist of the time, 
Mallet du Pan, wrote thus of the chances of a successful 
attack by France: "Divided into a multitude of separate 
governments, Europe offers few bases for a common resist- 
ance, and the first great nation which changes the face of 
society has to fear only dissociated units." ^ 

The words are a remarkable forecast of the collapse of the 
old order before the new; and the sequel was to show the 
peril that besets wars of propaganda. Lofty though the 
motives of the crusaders may be at the outset, they are 
apt speedily to degenerate under the lure of conquest. A 
strong nation which overruns weak States will in the process 
reveal the truth of the farseeing remark of Montesquieu, 
that, if a RepubHc subdues other peoples, its own liberty is 
endangered by the authority which it entrusts to its generals 
and proconsuls. In the campaigns of 1793-9 France tri- 
umphed too easily. Her profoundly national system too 
speedily upset the European equilibrium; and in the process 
the liberator merged into the mere conqueror. The results 
were soon felt by the "Hberated" Germans of the Rhine- 
land. The fraternal embracings of the first few days soon 
gave place to exactions, confiscations, forced loans, even to 
plunder. The irreligious customs of the French troops com- 
pleted the work of disillusionment; and when those harpies, 
the mihtary contractors, flew on the spoil, the Germans 
^ Mallet du Pan, MSms., I, 251. 



SCHILLER AND FICHTE 37 

experienced all the miseries of the conquered. All the salaried 
posts in the new administration were given to French offi- 
cials, often of a very corrupt type. The soldiery bettered 
their example, until, in 1799, a Rhinelander complained 
that everybody concealed money and valuables in order to 
save something from the orgies of plunder. In the five 
years after the French occupation of 1794-5 exactions 
amounting to £6,000,000 were wrung from the Rhineland; 
and there was a general regret for the earlier time of undis- 
turbed slumber under equally somnolent translucencies 
and abbesses. 

The change of tone in German literature between 1789 
and 1799 is remarkable. In August, 1789, the Swabian poet, 
Schubart, had extolled the felicity of the Germans in Alsace, 
who shared in the blessings of the French Revolution, while 
behind them (i. e. in Germany) cracked the whip of the 
despot. But, after the French conquest of the Rhineland, 
references to France and to her Revolution become cold and 
critical. In the writings of Goethe there are comparatively 
few references to the public sentiment of the time; for, as 
he explained in Wahrheit und Dichtung (anno 1775), "Our 
object was to get to know man; we were content to let people 
in general go their own way." This aloofness from the aims 
and strivings of the masses is a noteworthy feature of Goethe's 
character. It probably explains his indifference to the strug- 
gles of his countrymen against Napoleon, which sometimes 
has been ascribed to want of patriotism. That charge is 
unjust; for there are persons so constituted as to be unable 
to take interest in the collective activities of mankind. In 
their eyes the soul of man is the only study of any worth. 
The strivings of the many weary or disgust them. They 
are interested in the problems of the individual life; but 
popular movements, whether present or past, leave them cold. 
Such was the cast of Browning's mind. Though he Uved in 



38 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

the midst of the most romantic of national movements, that 
of Italy, he has left no poem inspired by it; whereas Mrs. 

! Browning, who possessed the collective sense, has left many 
such poems. Goethe, like Browning, lacked that sympathy 
with the masses, which every ardent reformer and patriot 

^ must possess. Such minds do not vibrate responsive to the 
appeal of the many in the present, or to that appeal from the 
past, which is the very soul of history. 

In Goethe's writings, as in those of Browning, there are 
only scattered references to pubhc affairs. But in Hermann 
und Dorothea (1797) there is this passage: "The man who, 
in a tottering age, is unsteady in character only increases the 
evil and spreads it further and further. ... It is not for 
the Germans to carry on the terrible Revolution, and to 
waver hither and thither." The words show that Goethe, 
for all his cosmopolitan leanings, cherished little hope for 
liberation by France. In his opinion the revolutionary 
movement had gone astray; and mankind could hope for 
improvement only by the steady development of all that 
was best in the leading nations. 

The disillusionment comes out most clearly in the works 
of Schiller. His sensitive spirit thrilled responsive to the 
collective impulses of his time. Indeed, his works form a 
mirror of the age. His first play, The Robbers (1779), pro- 
duced in his twentieth year, belongs to the poetry of revolt. 
Animated by his defiance of law and custom, all spirited 
German students then dreamt of overthrowing the petty 
tyrannies around them — a topic portrayed in The Robbers 
with school-boy extravagance. Later on, when for a time 
he quitted the drama for the domain of history, his thoughts 
still turned towards topics of rebellion. His Revolt of the 
Netherlands and Thirty Years* War deal with upheavals that 
affected many peoples. It is the downfall of tyranny, the 
progress of mankind in its sterner experiences, that interested 



SCHILLER AND FICHTE 39 

Schiller. Like Lessing and many other German thinkers of 
that age, he was not a national patriot; he was a cosmopolitan. 
Those leaders in thought and literature did not belong to 
Jena, Wolfenbiittel, Weimar; they belonged to the world at 
large; and their thoughts touched the imagination in spheres 
far removed from the ducal or electoral States in which they 
were conceived. Those writers, cramped though their sur- 
roundings were, gave to the world a literature no less universal 
than that of Voltaire, Diderot, and the Encyclopaedists. How 
strange, that those giants of the eighteenth century should 
have prided themselves on the eflfacement of national bound- 
aries at the time when the political convulsion partly brought 
about by their teaching was destined to parcel out the peoples 
in distinct and hostile groups! 

As an example of Schiller's contempt for a merely na- 
tional patriotism, take this fine passage from one of his 
letters, dealing with the aim which the historian ought to set 
before him. It was written in 1789, shortly after he became 
Professor of History at Jena: — 

"This is the problem; to choose and arrange your materials, 
so that, in order to interest, they shall not have the need of decora- 
tion. We moderns have a source of interest at our disposal which 
no Greek or Roman was acquainted with, and which the patriotic 
interest does not nearly equal. This last, in general, is chiefly of 
importance for unripe nations, for the youth of the world. But 
we may excite a very different sort of interest if we represent each 
remarkable occurrence that happened to men as being of impor- 
tance to man. It is a poor and little aim to write for one nation; 
a philosophic spirit cannot tolerate such limits, cannot bound its 
views to a form of human nature so arbitrary, fluctuating, acciden- 
tal. The most powerful nation is but a fragment; and thinking 
minds will not grow warm on its account, except in so far as this 
nation or its fortunes have exercised influence on the progress of 
the species." 



40 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

"Arbitrary, fluctuating, accidental''; these terms well de- 
scribe the life of the average German State — a mere atom in 
a kaleidoscope. How could one feel much enthusiasm about 
Wiirtemberg, Anhalt, or the little county of Limburg-Styrum, 
with its standing army of six officers and two privates! Yet 
it was in some of those pigmy societies that the himian mind 
took its loftiest flights; and it is open to question whether 
small States, the life of which is homely and the burdens light, 
do not favor the growth of the intellect far better than the 
enormous aggregations of the present, with their vast and 
diffuse aims, their complex problems, and the crushing load 
of taxation and mflitary service. Contrast the cast-iron 
philosophy and brassy literature of modern Germany with 
that of the quaint and kindly age which witnessed the birth 
every year of some masterpiece ennobling the life of the Uttle 
town. Which is the greater Germany? That of Goethe or 
that of Wflhehn II? 

A figure equally t5^ical of the serene cosmopolitanism of 
old Germany is the philosopher Fichte (1762-18 14). We are 
concerned now only with his ideas on national development;, 
but in a later lecture I shall return to his theory of the State, 
which contains much that is questionable, even dangerous. 
Here I wish to point out the contrast between his earUer 
and later teachings in reference to the German poHty. The 
most important work of his earlier period is the series of 
lectures entitled " Characteristics of the Present Age," which 
he deUvered to a general audience at Berlin in 1804-5. The 
lectures are remarkable for their complete neglect of the 
principle of nationality, though revolutionary France was 
largely the product of that potent force. Fichte discourses 
at large on. the human race as a whole. He asks: What is 
the plan of the world? What is the fundamental idea of 
human life viewed collectively? In Lecture I he defines it 
thus: "The End of the life of mankind on earth is this — that 



SCHILLER AND FICHTE 41 

in this life they may order all their relations with freedom 
according to reason." ^ Stated with Anglo-Saxon bluntness, 
this means that Reason is to rule in human affairs, and that 
men ought to be free to choose the methods by which they 
act reasonably. Everywhere in his lectures he considers 
Europe as a whole. There is no need to follow him in his 
tedious mapping-out of the different ages of human history, 
except to notice his conviction, that the world was then in 
the third age — that of liberation from external authority. 
He declares the age to be one of unrestrained licence and 
selfishness; but he hopes that the race will ultimately win 
its way back to justification and sanctification. In aU his 
tedious disquisition there is no sign that he perceives the 
force of national differences and of the diverse parts which 
different nations may have to play. With serene indifference 
to such distinctions, he assumes that somehow mankind will 
move, or be moved, onward through the five cycles. In 
Lecture XIV he says: "The Christian Europeans are essen- 
tially but one people; they recognize this common Europe 
as their one true Fatherland; and, from one end of it to the 
other, pursue nearly the same purposes and are ever actuated 
by similar motives." The statement proves how blind cos- 
mopoUtan philosophers can be to disagreeable facts. En- 
closing themselves in their own theories, and confusing what 
is with what ought to be, minds of that order often construct 
a world of their own, and rail at persons who remind them 
of the existence of the world of actuahties. Fichte, in his 
earUer phase, was one of these philosophizing spiders, Uving 
in a web which he had evolved from his inner consciousness, 
and calling it the world. Consider the facts. Napoleon 
had overrun Hanover and the Kingdom of Naples in the 
endeavor to beat down the British Power. He had turned 
Germany upside down with his Secularizations, and the war 
1 Fichte, Characteristics of the Present Age (Eng. TransL, p. s)- 



42 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

was clearly about to become world-wide; for Russia and 
Austria were arming against the great Emperor, who reck- 
lessly defied them. Yet Fichte says that all Christian peo- 
ples recognize Europe as their common Fatherland, are pur- 
suing nearly the same purposes, and are actuated by similar 
motives. 

Elsewhere, however, he admits that these Christian States 
are striving perpetually for supremacy. Sometimes one 
prevails: then another; and (says Fichte) the truly enlight- 
ened man will always owe allegiance to the one which pre- 
vails — 2L startling touch of worldly prudence. Only the 
earth-born souls will remain citizens of the fallen Stdte, 
recognizing their Fatherland in its soil, and rivers and moun- 
tains, which is all they desire. But "the sun-like Spirit, 
irresistibly attracted, will wing its way wherever there is 
Light and Liberty. And in this cosmopolitan frame of 
mind we may look with perfect serenity on the actions and 
the fate of Nations, for ourselves and our successors, even to 
the end of Time." 

This theory, if translated into practice, works out thus: 
If Prussia prevails over Austria, all enlightened Germans 
will transfer their allegiance to her. If France prevails 
over Prussia, these neo-Prussians will become Frenchmen 
at heart. If France falls, and there ensues a complete 
Balance of Power these political chameleons will run about 
distracted, seeking in vain for a predominant color. Was 
Fichte's fluid cosmopolitanism the outcome of despair at 
Germany's helplessness and of Napoleon's omnipotence? Or 
did he share Goethe's conviction as to the need of renovation 
by "the new Charlemagne"? It is difficult to say. One 
thing alone is clear, his utter indifiference to the claims of 
country. Whether France, Prussia, or Austria gained the 
supremacy was nothing to him. 

No! The national idea in Germany was first set forth 



SCHILLER AND FICHTE 43 

by a man who dealt, not with abstractions but realities, not 
with States but peoples. While Fichte was groping his way 
through these hazy abstractions, a poet and historian found 
his way to firm ground. Schiller gave to the world Wilhelm 
Tell (1804). 

He designed it as "a national drama, in sympathy with 
all the Hberal tendencies of the age." I believe that he 
hoped to stir up a truly German feeHng, and thus stay the 
dry-rot that was creeping into the life of his people. With 
the insight of a poet he had long noted the strength of pa- 
triotism. The national revival of France, effected by the 
Maid of Orleans, had inspired his drama on that subject; 
and in 1803-4 he turned his thoughts towards the German 
Swiss of the Forest Cantons. The inner meaning of the 
play lies in the conflict between the free mountaineers of the 
Ur-Cantonen and the greed and usurpation of the House 
of Hapsburg. True, the human interest of the story centres 
in the character and action of the legendary hero, Tell. 
The drama must have heroes, not heroic abstractions; and 
Tell is a fine specimen of the Swiss mountaineer, frank, 
generous, unsuspicious, no meddler in pohtics, and slow to 
act against recognized authority. He is the central figure of 
the drama; but he is not the moving spirit of its action. That 
spirit is the instinct of the people. Outraged by the bar- 
barities of the Hapsburg soldiery, that instinct asserts itself 
at first in saving this or that defender of his home; further 
than this Tell will not go. He represents the average good- 
natured mountaineer, who will save an individual, but 
does not understand political action, so that he is reproached 
for his want of fervor in the common cause. In fact, the 
instinct of the people wells forth most fully in the person 
of a woman. Gertrud is the moving influence of the piece. 
While her husband, Werner Stauffacher, seems likely to 
endure tamely aU the threats and insolence of the Hapsburg 



44 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

officers, she counsels resistance; and when he speaks of 
the horrors of war she replies: — 

"Look forward, Werner, not behind you, now." 

When again he reminds her of the nameless fate that may 
befall her, she utters these lofty words: — 

"None are so weak, but one last choice is left. 
A leap from yonder bridge, and I am free." 

Spurred to action by his wife's heroism, Stauffacher takes 
counsel with other men of Unterwalden; and they resolve 
to assemble on the Rlitli rock above the Lake of Lucerne, 
meeting there the men of Schywtz and Uri. In that primeval 
solitude, and under cover of night, they assemble to renew 
the ancient bond of union between the three cantons. Acts 
of brutal tyranny by the minions of Austria now bring to- 
gether men long sundered in times of peace. They listen as 
Stauffacher unfolds to them the story of their Germanic 
parentage; how, driven forth by famine from the northern 
plain, their forefathers forced a way into the Swiss mountains 
and made them homes in diverse valleys; yet ever were they 
mindful of their Switzer origin. Now, against Hapsburg 
usurpation they must make common cause, not only as free 
Switzers, but also as loyal sons of the old Germanic Empire. 
Before they swear to resist Austria's novel claims, a priest, 
Rosselmann, steps into the ring and urges them, for the sake 
of peace and quietness, to give way before Austria. One 
and all, they scout the proposal as that of a traitor; and 
they pass this decree: — 

"Whoe'er 
Shall talk of tamely bearing Austria's yoke. 
Let him be stripped of all his rights and honors; 
And no man hence receive him at his hearth." 



SCHILLER AND FICHTE 45 

After this drastic treatment of the pacifist case, they pro- 
ceed to renew their bond of union: — 

"We swear to be a nation of true brothers, 
Never to part in danger or in death." 

{They swear, with three fingers raised.) 
"We swear we will be free as were our sires. 
And sooner die than live in slavery." 

{They swear, as before.) 

What is this but a Social Contract in a poetical setting? 
Schiller had been an enthusiastic student of Rousseau; and 
he believed firmly in the formation of political societies by 
the action of the people, which would necessarily lead to 
liberty and harmony. The States thus formed would be 
strong and stable, far di£ferent from the artificial areas ruled 
over by German princehngs. The new Germanic State or 
States would guarantee the welfare of Germans and keep 
at arm's length the aggressor. The tone of the drama is 
throughout intensely German. The last scenes reveal the 
peasants free, united, and happy, while the House of Haps- 
burg is rent asunder by revolt and by the murder of its 
chief. 

The moral of it all is clear. Schiller appeals to his country- 
men to forget their miserable divisions which have left them 
a prey to the aggressions of Napoleon. He seems to say to 
the Germans of his day: "Will you not forget your absurd 
differences? Will you not join hands across the political 
barriers, and unite for the defence of your honor and your 
dearest interests? Only so can you save the Fatherland from 
subjection to an insolent usurper. Your princes cannot, or 
will not, save you. Your own right hands, your own good 
sense, must save you from servitude to the foreigner." 

This, surely, is the inner meaning of the drama. It de- 
scribes the birth of a nation, and as such it is regarded by 



46 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

all Switzers. They look back to the scene on the Riitli rock 
as the beginning of their political life. Whether that event 
is historical, or semi-historical, or legendary is of small ac- 
count. Even if it be legendary, it has exerted upon the 
fortunes of Switzerland an influence more important than 
that of cartloads of documents of unimpeachable authen- 
ticity. It is one of those episodes which make the heart of a 
people beat fast with pride and hope. In the Swiss House 
of Parhament at Berne the Riitli scene has been painted 
large on the wall behind the President's chair. In that Parha- 
ment there are men who speak French, German, and Itahan; 
but the feeUng of unity aroused by the contemplation of that 
scene transcends mere diversities of tongue, and merges the 
fragments of those now warring peoples in a fervidly Swiss 
nationahty, which bids fair to outlast even the divulsive 
influences of this war.^ It is true that the stram just now on 
Swiss nationahty is very severe; and the sharp tension which 
prevails between the German and the Latin portions reveals 
the strength of the tie of language. But here Hes the interest 
of the case of Switzerland. The Swiss cherish a collective 
sentiment which far transcends race and language, a senti- 
ment springing from pride in a glorious past and love of the 
mountains around which they cluster. The Swiss will, I 
believe, remain a nation, and will not merge into the three 
great peoples that surround them. Their keen historic sense, 
their romantic attachment to their mountains and rivers, 
will keep them united. In this respect they are the "earth- 
bom souls" at whom Fichte scoffed; and this chnging to the 
soil, this pride in their achievements, will, I venture to say, 
help to keep Switzerland a united whole. In this sense the 

* Count Mamiani, Rights of Nations [Eng. edit., i860], p. 44, says that 
the Swiss are not "in the ordinary sense properly a nation." This I 
deny. For, as I shall show, in Lecture VIII, it is sentiment and will, 
not language, that make a nation. 



SCHILLER AND FICHTE 47 

legend of Wilhelm Tell, and the presentment of it by Schiller, 
form a national asset of priceless worth. 

For Germany, too, Wilhelm Tell soon became preeminently 
the national drama. The instinct of the people caught at 
the truth which was there enshrined. Thenceforth Na- 
poleon was regarded as the national enemy, and union against 
him as the paramount duty of all. The patriotic songs in 
this and others of Schiller's dramas inspired thousands of 
youths who went gladly into the almost hopeless struggle 
against the great Emperor. As was finely said at a meeting 
in memory of Schiller: "Thousands who trembled not when 
the earth groaned with the weight of the despot's mailed 
cavalry; men who with fearless hearts confronted the thunder 
of his artillery ... all carried with them into the struggle 
the enthusiasm kindled by Schiller's poetry; his songs were 
on their Ups, and his spirit fought with them." 
y During the years 1805-11 that struggle brought nothing 
but disaster to the opponents of Napoleon. The organized 
might of the French Empire seemed likely to overbear the 
rest of Europe; and if one investigates the causes of this 
superiority, they appear to be these: France was the only 
great nation completely permeated with the new national 
spirit, and also thoroughly organized for war. The British 
and Spanish peoples were patriotic, but were ill-organized, 
while in Napoleon France found the most ruthlessly efl&cient 
organizer of all time. The other European States were in a 
chaotic condition. Austria was a house of cards; Prussia 
was Httle better; Russia was honeycombed by corruption. 
In fact, after the death of Pitt and the dismissal of Stein, 
Napoleon was confronted by mere mediocrities both in the 
Cabinet and in the field. Or, to sum up, the new national 
spirit, bom in and after 1804, was a mere infant of days by 
comparison with the splendid adolescence of France. The 
experiences of those terrible years prove that the justice of 



48 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

a cause is of little avail unless that cause adapts itself to the 
needs of the time. If the work of adaptation be slowly and 
inefl&ciently carried out, the peoples that are at fault wiQ 
suffer for their sins of omission. One of the sternest lessons 
of history is that inefficient and slipshod work, even if it 
be in the best of causes, must bring disaster. Peoples are 
punished for slackness and inertia as much as they are for 
positive crimes. So it was with England, Spain, and Prussia 
in the years 1804-12. Until they found out Wellington, 
Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Bliicher, all the lofty aspira- 
tions and enthusiasms were of little avail. 

Out of the darkness of despair that brooded over Prussia 
after the disaster of Jena, one voice sounded forth in words 
of inspiration and hope. When she lay under the heel of 
Napoleon; when Berlin and all Prussian cities were garrisoned \ 
by French troops, Fichte's easy cosmopolitanism fell from { 
him. Like all noble natures, his was not convinced by con- 
quest. In those dark days he found that he could not trans- 
fer his allegiance from Berlin to Paris, though Paris was 
incontestably supreme, and Berhn seemed to have gone 
under for ever. Even before the campaign of Jena he ad- 
dressed the Prussian army in glowing terms; and when it 
streamed away eastwards towards the Vistula and Niemen 
in utter rout, his patriotic feeUngs deepened, as will those of 
all true men and women in time of anxiety or disaster. Then 
it was that he discovered cosmopolitanism to be only a fair- 
weather creed. After the Peace of Tilsit, when Prussia lost 
half her lands and all her prestige, Fichte stood forth at 
Berlin, and, within sound of the drums of the French garri- 
son, delivered his "Addresses to the German Nation." ' They 
purported to be a continuation of the lectures given in 1804-5 ; 
but they breathe an utterly different spirit. For in the in- 
terval the idea of nationality laid hold of the popular imagina- 
tion; and now, too, when the fabric of the Prussian State 



SCHILLER AND FICHTE 49 

had fallen in ruin, Fichte saw the German nation. Pre- 
viously he had discoursed about States: now his theme was 
far more definite, more human. In face of the Napoleonic 
ascendancy, what were Prussia and Austria, Saxony and 
Bavaria? As those miserable divisions had invited disaster, 
so, too, a close union might bring salvation. The topic was 
dangerous, as Fichte was well aware: ''I know the risk (so 
he wrote to Beyme in January, 1808). I know that a bullet 
may strike me down as well as Palm.^ But that is not what 
I fear; and, for the aim which I have in view, I too would 
gladly die." 

His aim was to convince Germans everywhere that their 
present ruin was due to selfishness. Egotism had divided 
them up into m5niads of petty States and kept them divided; 
so that, what with poHtical barriers and class divisions, they 
never caught a glimpse of wide and generous aims. He called 
his age the age of giant selfishness, which had developed to 
the utmost on all sides and was about to destroy itself. The 
description is apt if appHed to Germany; for, if the Germany 
of that time was the result of petty selfishness. Napoleon was 
also the incarnation of colossal acquisitiveness. In the game 
of grab, into which European politics had degenerated since 
the accession of Frederick the Great, all trust and confidence 
had vanished, and thus the great robber-baron beyond the 
Rhine was able to prey on the thieving knights and footpads of 
Germany. As yet there was no sign of effective union; for 
how can there be a firm union among thieves? Fichte was 
correct in his diagnosis of the disease which paralyzed Europe 
in 1804-7. Egotism and greed had made of it mere poHtical 
rubble, and the cement of pubHc confidence was nowhere to 
be found. Distrust must give way to trust (said Fichte); 
the old jealousy between German States must vanish in 

1 Palm, a Niimberg bookseller, was shot by Napoleon's order for the 
crime of selling a patriotic pamphlet. 



50 NATIONALITY IN MODERN fflSTORY 

view of the urgency of their universal interests; in place of 
the class feeUng, which had weakened Prussia, there must 
arise a national feehng, based on the perception of kindred 
aims and duties. Selfishness (said he) is self -destructive; for, 
when it has run its full course, no firm foundation is left. 
That vice had ruined Germany. How must she be recon- 
structed? 

Fichte's answer is not altogether clear. It does not sound 
forth with the trumpet tones of conviction by which Mazzini 
thrilled Italy in the thirties. The German philosopher had not 
the abounding faith and enthusiasm of the Italian prophet. 
Further, he was hampered by the endeavor to express every- 
thing in abstract terms, while Mazzini spoke straight to the 
heart of the people. The cloudiness of Fichte's views also re- 
sulted from his being a pioneer of thought in this direction — 
witness his definition of a nation (Lecture VI) — "A nation is 
the whole community of persons hving in social intercourse, 
ever propagating itself in a natural manner, and existing 
collectively under a certain special law of the development of 
the divine out of it." 

This nebulous circumlocution in no sense advances our 
knowledge of the subject; and it must be confessed that the 
Addresses are often both dull and confused. Especially tire- 
some are Lectures IV-VII, which demonstrate the Germanic 
nature of the Germans with an iteration that seems wholly 
needless to-day, however much it was needful then to awaken 
their dormant national sentiment. After these digressions 
Fichte's narrative straightens and broadens. Very effective 
is the reference to the ancient Germans, who refused to face 
the possibiUty of being Romanized and were resolved at all 
costs to order their fives in their own way. Coming to the 
present he lifts the idea of the nation to an eminence whence 
it may radiate hope to the myriads of Germans who had 
vegetated in little States, one and all now subject to Napoleon. 



/ 

SCHILLER AND FICHTE 51 

The following passage in Lecture VIII must have been a 
revelation to all who could grasp its meaning: — 

"Nation and Fatherland in this sense, as bearer of and securer 
for immortality in this world, and as that which alone here below 
can be eternal, far transcend the State in the usual sense of that 
term. . . . This [the State] aims only at security of rights, internal 
peace, a livelihood to everyone, and preservation of material exist- 
ence dining Heaven's pleasure by means of toil. All this is only 
the means, condition, preparation for that which patriotism essen- 
tially aims at, the blossoming of the eternal and divine in the world. 
For that very reason, as being the supreme, final, and independent 
authority, must govern the State itself, while limiting it in the 
choice of means for its next object, internal peace. With this object 
in view, the natural freedom of the individual must be restricted 
in many ways; and, if one has no other intention and aim than this, 
it would be well to restrict it within the narrowest hmits possible." 

Idealism here tails off into realism. Fichte's celestial arc 
ends in a Prussian drill-yard. In later passages he insists on 
the need of conscription and the drastic restriction of in- 
dividual liberty. Of course, there were powerful motives 
why he should urge the claims of Fatherland. It had been 
ruined by individual selfishness, both of princes and classes. 
Now, says Fichte, all Germans must think first of the nation 
and of the duties which they owe to it. No longer must they 
shift their responsibilities on to someone else. Every man 
must realize his duty and perform it manfully. For this 
purpose he will nerve himself by catching a glimpse of what 
the future may bring to the German nation. He will resolve 
that the Fatherland shall be absolutely independent of alien 
rule. Just as the eye can be trained to feel disgust at dirt 
and disorder, so, too, the political vision of Germans can be 
quickened until they will reject all thought of subjection to 
the foreigner. In order to fire them with the heroism neces- 



52 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

sary for driving out the French, Fichte faces the problem of 
the motive power dormant in the will of man. How shall 
the ordinary citizen be nerved to the self-abandonment that 
can accomplish wonders of bravery? That is the problem. 
Evidently, no ordinary motive will suffice. Or, to quote his 
words: "Not the spirit of quiet civic obedience to the con- 
stitution and the laws. No; but the burning flame of the 
higher patriotism which conceives the nation as the embodi- 
ment of the eternal, to which the high-minded man jo37fully 
devotes himself; while the base-minded man, who only exists 
for the other, must be compelled to devote himself." 

Developing this thought, Fichte seeks to fortify the hero- 
ism, even of the high-minded man, by the following inspiring 
thought. Such an one will prize his nation above all else; 
for it is only the nation which can assure the continuity of his 
work. He will value his life, not for the sake of mere existence, 
but for the amount of work which he can accomplish; and, 
as the nation is the guardian of that work and its guarantor 
for the future, he will value its safety far above his own. For 
the nation, then, he will gladly lay down his life, so that, 
as far as in him lies, he may assure the survival of the larger 
life which alone lends significance to his own.^ The thought 
is like that which Kipling, by a flash of genius, has enshrined 
in one glorious line: — 

"Who dies if England lives?" 

It is obvious that Fichte's doctrine as to the absolute 
sovereignty of the nation over the lives of all its members 
was and is Hable to great abuse. Fichte's glowing words 
must not bhnd us to the risk of entrusting the nation for ever 
with unlimited powers of life and death. ^ Noble though his 

1 Fichte, Lecture VIII. 

2 See Lord Acton's remarks [Essays on Liberty, p. 228] on the Machi- 
avellian traits in Fichte's teaching. 



SCHILLER AND FICHTE 53 

theory may be when the question is of expelling the foreigner, 
it becomes pestilential when that task is achieved, and the 
nation of death-defying heroes look forth upon less redoubt- 
able neighbors. This, as we have seen, was the temptation 
that lured Revolutionary France into wars of conquest. A 
similar temptation has lured the Germany of WiUiam I 
into the mad ways of Wilham II. 

In the time of Fichte the only question was that of regain- 
ing the independence of Germany. But how was it to be 
regained? Not by force; that was impossible when the French 
held aU the fortresses. By moral means, then, — says Fichte 
(Lectures IX-XI) — by education; for that is the only domain 
in which Napoleon leaves the Germans free. The philosopher 
points out that in many respects German education has been 
utterly defective. It has been narrow and uninspiring; it 
has left its pupils cold and selfish; so that, despite all the 
teachmg, they have not followed its higher precepts and 
warnings, but have gone on following the impulses of their 
own natural selfishness. Hitherto education has neither 
instructed nor inspired. But its true function is to inspire. 
The true educator will not be satisfied with instructing. He 
will seek to uplift the moral nature of his students. He will 
set forth so glowing a picture of the ideal life that, before it, 
cold selfishness will melt away. The moral order of the uni- 
verse will appear in so radiant a vision that the petty egotism 
of the individual will vanish. And not only the wealthy 
and middle classes are to be thus inspired. All classes will 
be influenced by the wider and nobler education of the future. 
"We desire to inspire Germans by a feeHng of unity which 
may throb through all their limbs." At this point, as he 
catches a vision of what a better training may effect, he doffs 
his academic stiffness and exclaims in the inspired words of 
Ezekiel: "Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe 
upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied, as He 



54 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

commanded me; and the breath came into them, and they 
lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army." 

As to the educational methods to be adopted, Fichte 
strongly recommended those of the Swiss reformer, Pestalozzi. 
They were adopted, and, after the infusion of German 
method, they were found to be of great service. Elementary 
education, therefore, received an impetus of great value in 
Prussia; and this development, together with the reforms of 
Stein, Scharnhorst, and Hardenberg, laid the basis for the 
healthier polity of the future. In the academic sphere equal 
progress was made by the estabHshment of the thoroughly 
national Universities of Berhn and Breslau (1809-11). An 
enUghtened patriotism watched over them from the start. 
The King gave a royal palace so that BerHn might have 
suitable University buildings; and from the nearly bankrupt 
Treasury 150,000 dollars a year were awarded for the main- 
tenance of the new institution. Hitherto, for the most part, 
German Universities had existed in small towns remote from 
pohtical life; and in them there was evolved the type of pro- 
fessor depicted by Carlyle in the person of Diogenes Teu- 
felsdrockh. Professor of Things in General in the University 
of Weissnichtwo. Readers of Sartor Resartus will remember 
that Teuf elsdrockh in the early part of his career was mainly 
occupied with the cognate employments, — "to think and 
smoke tobacco." These led him only to the Everlasting 
No. But in lucid intervals he gradually fought his way 
towards the Everlasting Yes — "The chief end of life is not 
thought but action. ... Up! Up! Whatsoever thy hand 
findeth to do, do it with thy might." 

This surprising change mirrors that which came over the 
life of Germany in the decade 1804 to 18 13. The time of 
divisions, of sloth, of pleasurable self-seeking passed away; 
and in its place there came a time marked by terrible suffering 
and poverty, but irradiated by the noblest deeds of self- 



SCHILLER AND FICHTE 55 

sacrifice and heroism. For the most inspired poet and 
philosopher had spoken to that people in words that burned. 
Schiller showed what the heroism of milettered mountaineers 
could effect in a great and inspiring cause. Fichte, too, after 
emerging from dreamland, came out into the world of reaUty 
and helped to lead his countrymen thither. Emerging from 
their holes and comers, they discovered their essential one- 
ness; and, as happened to Frenchmen twenty years earlier, 
the uplift from a narrow provinciaHsm to a sense of national- 
ity endowed them with a buoyancy and vigor never known 
before. Arndt, Korner, and others composed national songs 
that stirred the blood; and from the Universities there came 
professors and students, resolved to win the freedom and 
independence which Fichte's glowing words had made an 
essential of life. He, too, formerly so unpractical, sealed the 
new doctrine with his life-blood; for he died of a fever caught 
while his wife and he tended the wounded in hospital — an 
episode as significant as any in the drama of the War of 
Liberation. 



LECTURE IV 

THE SPANISH NATIONAL RISING 

"C'est de I'Espagne que I'Europe apprit que Napoleon pouvait 
^tre vaincu, et comme il pouvait I'etre." — ^Talleyeand, Mtmoires, 
I, 389. 

The rising of the German people against Napoleon in 18 13 
is for ever memorable, not only for a heroism finally crowned 
with well-merited triumph, but als9 for the work of intellec- 
tual and moral preparation, which endowed their national 
movement with sohd backing and permanent results. On 
turning our thoughts towards the Spanish Peninsula we are 
conscious of an entire change of conditions, both external and 
internal. The Spaniards are sometimes reproached with 
having drawn from that same time of testing, the years 1808- 
13, none of the beneficent influences that renewed and en- 
riched the life of the German nation. To explain the causes of 
this divergence is one of my aims in this lecture. 

Firstly, Germany held an honored place in the intel- 
lectual movement of the eighteenth century. Her leading 
men, even some of her rulers, were in full sympathy with 
" Illuminism," which promised peacefully to banish ignorance 
and to make of mankind one happy family. They welcomed 
the French Revolution; and only after the perversion of its 
aims did Teuton and Gaul come into serious conflict. Even 
when racial animosities were embittered by the Napoleonic 
occupation, the leaders of thought in Germany continued 
their efforts, albeit with aims that were distinctly national, 
not international as of yore. Consequently, eighteenth- 

S6 



THE SPANISH NATIONAL RISING 57 

century culture did much to invigorate the new life of Central 
Europe. 

Far different was the condition of Spain. She had stood 
apart from the intellectual movement, which found exponents 
among a mere handful of her sons. Consequently there were 
no influential groups of savants, no inspiring traditions, on 
which the Spanish revival could be based; and, as we shall 
see, the strange shifts to which their patriots were reduced 
prevented any well-considered plan of action. 

Of all these difficulties the fundamental cause was the 
aloofness of Spam from Europe. Her aloofness explains 
not only her intellectual separation, but also her exclusive 
nationalism. The divergence of her interests from those 
of her neighbors is due to her insularity. Though seas 
connect, mountains divide; and the Pyrenees form the most 
rigid barrier in Europe. No land-power has much influenced 
the life of Spain, because no land-power has ever been able 
to control it for long. In the Dark Ages conquerors from the 
North, Vandals and Visigoths, swept over and even tried to 
hold the Peninsula. But the effort of the latter people to 
rule it from Toulouse broke down, just as a similar attempt of 
Charlemagne broke down. The rugged and impervious 
barrier of the Pyrenees accounts for the failure. Spain either 
defied her would-be conquerors from the North, or else she 
absorbed them. 

On the other hand, her Mediterranean coasts almost 
invite the invader; and she was in succession all but subdued 
by Carthaginians, Romans, and Moors. But there again, as 
Livy remarked, the extremes of climate, the barren plateau 
in the interior, and the wonderful tenacity of the Spaniards in 
defending their towns rendered complete conquest almost 
impossible. The Moors, even at the height of their power, 
never crushed the defenders of the northern fastnesses, who 
little by little pushed back the invaders, and in the process 



58 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

fashioned the national character to its extremes of valor, 
bigotry, and pride. Later on, the French monarchs were to 
experience the toughness of the Spanish nature, and Henri IV 
summed up their enterprises in the phrase: "In Spain small 
armies will be beaten, large armies will starve." The mem- 
ories of conquest of the New World and of invincibility in 
their own peninsula stiffened the neck of the Spaniards even 
in the days of their decline. Robert Southey, during his 
travels in Spain in 1794-5, relates that a Spanish manufac- 
turer who had sought to introduce wheelbarrows into his 
works could not persuade his men to use them. All kinds of 
vehicles were meant for beasts of burden, not for Spaniards! 
The experience of the Italian poet, Alfieri, was the same. He 
declared the Spaniards to be the only people of Europe 
''possessed of sufficient energy to struggle against foreign 
usurpation.'' 

Such was the people whom Napoleon sought to harness 
to his conqueror's car. In the encyclopaedic studies of his 
youth there is a serious gap. Nowhere does he seem to have 
studied national character. It was one of the defects of 
eighteenth-century thought to ignore differences of race. 
Man was considered as man; and, though Rousseau echoed 
some of the cautions which Montesquieu had given forth as 
to those differences, the French Revolutionists paid little 
heed; and Napoleon certainly erred in assuming that men 
would in general respond to the same appeals. In his official 
correspondence is included one letter (dated March 28, 1808) 
which cautions Murat against ignoring the national energy of 
the Spaniards; but that letter is a later invention. In the 
genuine letters there appear no signs even of ordinary cau- 
tion, as to the risk of provoking the Spaniards. So far as we 
can judge. Napoleon shared the behef, common in France 
since the days of Choiseul, that they were a decadent people, 
negligible as a political force. 



THE SPANISH NATIONAL RISING 59 

This extreme confidence was, perhaps, natural after his 
conquest of Austria, Prussia, and Russia in the campaigns 
of 1805-7. England had blundered badly on land; and 
the Emperor hoped, by means of the new Russian alliance, 
and thanks to the enforced assistance of the Spanish navy, 
to reverse the victory of Trafalgar and overthrow even her 
naval power. Spain, then, he regarded as a tool in the world- 
wide strife. Early in March, 1808, when Barcelona was 
scarcely held down by the troops of General Duhesme, the 
Emperor wrote to Murat: ''There is no discontent whatever 
at Barcelona. General Duhesme is a gossip. ... On the 
whole, the people are well disposed, and when we have the 
citadel, we have everything." Napoleon was then at Paris. 
He had never been in Spain; yet he claimed to know about the 
Spaniards better than the French generals then in that coun- 
try. On April 26, while at Bayonne, he wrote to Murat, at 
Madrid: "It is time for you to show fitting energy. I expect 
you will not spare the Madrid mob, if it stirs, and that you 
will have it disarmed immediately." On April 29 he wrote to 
the Tsar Alexander I: "These family quarrels [those of 
Charles IV of Spain with the Heir Apparent, Ferdinand] 
cause me some trouble; but I will soon be free to arrange the 
great affair with Your Majesty." [The "great affair" was 
the partition of Turkey, in which the Spanish fleet was to be 
serviceable.] After Murat's troops had shot down hundreds 
of the men of Madrid in the patriotic rising of May 2, the 
Emperor compUmented him on his energy, and announced 
to him the signature of a treaty with the senile Charles IV 
at Bayonne, whereby the latter resigned to him (Napoleon) 
all rights to the throne of Spain. The Estates of Spain 
would assemble at Bayonne to take suitable measures! All 
the genuine letters of the time show no sign of apprehension of 
a national rising in Spain. They are those of a general who 
believes that he has that people by the throat. Because 



6o NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

French troops occupy Madrid, Barcelona, all the chief 
northern fortresses, and those of Portugal; because also very- 
many of the Spanish troops are absent either in Portugal or 
in Holstein, he deems the Spanish problem at an end. For 
him Spain is the royal family, the Court, the grandees who 
form the Estates. If he can bully the rightful successor, 
Ferdinand, into a renunciation of his rights; if he can intern 
in France both Charles IV and Ferdinand; if he can cajole the 
Spanish grandees into a recognition of his own claims — then 
he is master of Spain. 

He left out of count one aU-important factor — the nation. 
So soon as the astounding news from Bayonne became known, 
every town, every province of Spain rejected his sover- 
eignty with scorn and loathing. In vain did Charles and 
Ferdinand advise submission to the usurper; ^ in vain did 
the Junta, composed of the leading men of Madrid, inculcate 
the duty of obeying the new ruler; in vain did the Holy 
Inquisition preach the same degrading course; in vain did 
responsible persons and thinkers point out the madness of 
opposing the master of the Continent. The people rejected 
the counsels of authority, religion, experience, and reform. 
With an impulse which was both furious and sustained, both 
local and universal, they rushed at the French forces and 
reduced them suddenly to the defensive. District by dis- 
trict, province by province, they rose separately, yet with 
astounding unanimity. The rising did not begin in Madrid; 
for the turbulent in that city had been cowed by the cannon 
and cavalry of Murat. How the same thought or instinct 
laid hold of the whole of Spain within a few days is a mystery. 
The episode reminds us of the incalculable forces which now 
and again have aroused the tribes of Arabia or of the Soudan 
to united action. Indeed, the Spanish Rising is a recurrence 
to the ways of primitive man, or at least of the mediaeval 
* Ann. Register [1808], p. 214. 



THE SPANISH NATIONAL RISING 6i 

levies when the faithful mustered to fight the Moors. Then, 
as in 1808, the impulse was general, yet the action was 
provincial. Above all, it was action by the populace. In 
many places those who had advised submission to the French 
were butchered without mercy, and patriotic Juntas were 
chosen by acclamation to arrange for the defence of each 
province. 

Especially noteworthy was the action of that of Asturias. 
That httle province of the North- West was the first to or- 
ganize a Junta which took decisive action. With splendid 
audacity that single Junta declared war against Napoleon; 
and those who notice the connection of the instinct of na- 
tionahty with the historic sense will remember that in the 
long warfare against the Moors, Asturias had been the last 
hope of Spanish freedom. Now it was to be the first hope of 
the coming national independence. That Junta took an- 
other important step. It despatched two deputies to London 
to beg help from the British people. Legally, Spain was at 
war with us, as she had been since 1804. But Asturias 
recked little of legality at such a time. Neither did our great 
statesman. Canning. The warm welcome accorded by our 
people to the Asturian deputies revealed to him as by a flash 
the change that had just come over the spirit of the age. 
Hitherto (as Sheridan finely said) "Bonaparte had run a 
victorious race because he had contended against princes 
without dignity, ministers without wisdom, and countries 
where the people were indifferent as to his success." Clearly 
a new age had dawned when a provincial Council dared to 
throw down the gauntlet to the great Emperor. 

I have failed to find in the British archives an account 
either of Canning's interview with the two delegates or 
of the Cabinet meeting where the decision was formed to 
help the Spanish people. It must have been formed very 
quickly; for on June 15 Canning spoke as follows in the 



62 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

House of Commons: *'We shall proceed upon the prin- 
ciple that any nation of Europe that starts up to oppose a 
Power, ... the common enemy of all nations, whatever be 
the existing political relations of that nation, it becomes in- 
stantly our essential Ally." In pursuance of this definitely 
national policy. Great Britain on July 4 ordered the cessation 
of hostihties with Spain; and there ensued an informal but 
binding alliance with the Spanish people. There was an 
inner fitness in this compact; for it bound together the only 
States which then were conterminous with nations. Na- 
poleonic France had far outleaped her natural bounds. 
The British and Spanish peoples now undertook to restrain 
her within just limits; and the potency of the national im- 
pulse is seen in the rally of every people in Europe to their 
side in the years 1812-14. 

The Anglo-Spanish Alliance is, therefore, a turning point 
in the long struggle against Napoleon. Up to the year 1807 
he had embodied the genius and strength of Revolutionary 
France; and her strength (at once democratic and national) 
far exceeded that of the torpid and artificial States around 
her. But now, from motives of ambition, he went out of 
his way to interfere with a people that only asked to be 
left alone; and his conduct aroused in it a hatred that noth- 
ing could quench. Consequently, the national impulse, 
which had helped France to overthrow the moribund States 
of Italy and Germany, now began to operate against her; 
and even the military genius of Napoleon could not make 
up for the downward drag which this fatal incubus entailed. 
No campaigns were so much detested by the French sol- 
diery as those in Spain; and that, not so much because they 
had to face Wellington and the Spanish climate, as on ac- 
count of the savage hatred which they encountered from 
the Spaniards themselves. The outcome of that hatred 
will appear in the following passages, taken from the first 



THE SPANISH NATIONAL RISING 63 

Proclamation of the Supreme Junta. After recounting 
some successes of the Spaniards and advising a war of par- 
tisans, the appeal thus refers to the memory of the glorious 
past. 

"France has never domineered over us, nor set her foot in our 
territory. We have many times mastered her, not by deceit, but 
by force of arms; we have made her Kings prisoners, and we have 
made that nation tremble; we are the same Spaniards; and France 
and Europe and the world shall see that we are not less gallant 
than the most glorious of our ancestors." 

The proclamation then states that when their lawful King, 
Ferdinand, is restored 

"the Cortes will be assembled, abuses reformed, and such laws be 
enacted as the circumstances of the time and experience may 
dictate for the public good and happiness — things which we 
Spaniards know how to do, which we have done as well as other 
nations, without any necessity that the vile French should come 
to instruct us; and, according to their custom, under the mask of 
friendship and wishes for our happiness, should contrive to plunder 
us, to violate our women, to assassinate us, to deprive us of our 
liberty, our laws, and our King, to scoff at and destroy our holy 
religion. . . ." ^ 

That is an official document. As for the pamphlets of 
the time, let this suffice. It is a retort to Napoleon's offer 
of reforms, beginning with the usual formula: "Napoleon, 
Emperor of the French, King of Italy, Protector of the 
Confederation of the Rhine," etc. The counterblast be- 
gins:— 

"Yes! Napoleon, that is Napo-dragon, Apollyon, Ruler of the 
Abyss, King of the monsters of Hell, heretics, and heretic princes, — 
Abominable Beast, Protector, Head and Soul of the Confederation 
^Ibid^j pp. 218, 219. 



64 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

of the Rhine, that is of the seven heads and ten horns of the beast, 
which bear blasphemies against God and the Saints. . . ." 

Thus religion was now invoked against the French. For 
this the Emperor had himself to thank. As if his Spanish 
business were not enough, he in that same springtime de- 
spoiled the Pope of four provinces. In consequence, Pius 
VII anathematized his despoiler, and urged the Spaniards 
to arise like David and slay Goliath. The Spanish Rising 
therefore partook of the nature of a crusade. Their armies 
were placed under the protection of saints, and in some 
cases relics of saints went with them to battle, thereby in- 
flaming the Spanish nature to its utmost. 

All these aids were needed; for in a military sense Spain 
was almost defenceless. Her regular troops were, in the 
main, absent; her capital and chief fortresses were held 
by the French; there was no one centre of union for the 
various provinces, which soon fell to quarrelling about 
the allocation of the money and stores sent from England. 
Indeed, Spain was in a worse plight than France was be- 
fore the Battle of Valmy; but the same potent impulse 
nerved the defenders; and, fortunately for the Spanish 
patriots. Napoleon's eagerness to seize the fleet at Cadiz 
(including the French ships that escaped from Trafalgar) 
led him prematurely to press on a large French force to- 
wards that port. It was surrounded, overborne, and com- 
pelled to surrender at Baylen (July, 1808). What Valmy 
had been to France, Baylen was to Spain, a proof that she 
could overcome troops hitherto deemed invincible. 

In one respect the Spanish victory at Baylen was a mis- 
fortune. It filled the Spaniards with intolerable conceit. 
When Joseph Bonaparte and the French troops fell back 
behind the line of the Ebro, the perfervid imagination of 
the South saw in fancy the standards of Spain soaring over 



THE SPANISH NATIONAL RISING 65 

the Pyrenees and entering the plains of Guienne. Napier 
relates that the Spanish officers remarked to those of Sir 
John Moore's army: " We are much obliged to our friends, 
the English; we thank them for their good will; we shall 
escort them through France to Calais; . . . they shall not 
have the trouble of fighting the French; and we shall be 
pleased to have them as spectators of our victories."^ This 
lofty spirit went before a terrible fall. In the autumn and 
winter of 1808 Napoleon burst in on these cackling fowl 
and scattered them to the winds. Yet, even so, Spain was 
not conquered. After every defeat she rose, still defiant. 
The defence of her walled towns, especially Saragossa, was 
sublime; and that defence was conducted by the people 
themselves, no less than by the military. Fifty French 
cannon during forty days played upon its walls and massive 
monasteries before the eagles of Napoleon floated over the 
ruins of the capital of Aragon. 

It was both the weakness and the strength of the Spaniards 
that their national sense was largely provincial. It was 
their weakness because the provinces rarely worked well 
together. The different Juntas were absurdly jealous as 
well as greedy. Besides, owing to the occupation of Madrid 
by the enemy, there was no possibility of direction from a 
central point. Further, the haughty and suspicious nature 
of the Spaniards rendered cordial co-operation with Wel- 
lington extremely difficult. Hence the Duke, after Talavera, 
left them alone and operated from Portugal as a base. Not 
until Napoleon's Grand Army perished in Russia was there 
a chance of beating the French in Spain. But then, in 1813, 
after numerous defeats had rendered the natives more rea- 
sonable, all the forces of the Peninsula pulled well together. 
The results were phenomenal, and French domination van- 
ished in the brief campaign of Vittoria. 
1 Napier, I, 84. 



66 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

Nevertheless, the provincial sentiment also strengthened 
the Spanish cause; for when one province was lost, the others 
resisted none the less stoutly; and the task of the French 
in holding down a population that scorned surrender in- 
creased with every success. As Marshal Jourdan wrote: 
"The more soundly the Spanish armies were beaten, the 
more eagerly did that people rush to arms; the more the 
French gained ground, the more dangerous did their po- 
sition become." The broken and inhospitable nature of 
the country singularly favored the partisan warfare of 
the defenders, so that, provided Wellington held a large 
French force to the West, and all the other provinces per- 
severed, the ultimate failure of the French was inevitable. 
Even the genius of Napoleon could not break down the 
alliance of the Spanish national spirit with the great Sea 
Power. Moreover, the display of this tenacious vitality 
in a land hitherto deemed moribund created a profound 
impression amidst every nation of the world. 

Spain derived little permanent benefit from all this ex- 
penditure of energy; and the reason for this disappointing 
finale seems to be that the Spanish movement differed in 
toto from that of France nineteen years before. In its es- 
sence the French Revolution was a revolt of the brain of 
France against a cramping system which she had long out- 
grown. In 1808 it was not the brain, but the heart of Spain 
which led to action; and the action was directed solely against 
foreign invaders or usurpers. The Spanish Rising offers 
an example of nationalism in its most passionate form. 
It is, on a large scale, the action of a family, which seeks 
to expel intruders who have violated its hospitality. In 
such a case we do not expect the family immediately to 
set about the reform of its internal economy. Long before 
the events of 1789 France (if we may pursue our simile) 
had been outgrowing its ancestral abode, and the call for 



THE SPANISH NATIONAL RISING 67 

reconstruction and refitting was imperative. The case of 
Spain was utterly different. Therefore, to reproach the 
Spaniards for not making so good a use as the French of 
the opportunity offered by an outburst of national zeal 
is manifestly unfair. 

Nevertheless, the Spaniards did attempt to make some 
changes, though in a somewhat hurried and one-sided way. 
The defects of their procedure resulted from two dominant 
facts. They had to legislate at Cadiz; and at that city, 
within sound of the roar of Marshal Soult's guns, deputies 
of the unconquered provinces could assemble freely; but 
refugees from the large portions of territory held by the 
French were accepted as representatives of those unfor- 
tunate towns and districts. Naturally, such a haphazard 
assemblage did not evince qualities of prudence and good 
sense, but rather of passion and prejudice. Naturally, too, 
it was violently anti-French; and yet this very body, almost 
of necessity, borrowed from France the groundwork for 
the new constitution. As the EngHsh constitution was too 
vague to appeal to Continental reformers, those of Cadiz 
fell back upon the example set by the French Constituent 
Assembly in 1791. They restricted the functions of their 
future King within narrow limits; and, copying the phrase- 
ology of the Rights of Man, they declared that "sovereignty 
resided essentially in the nation." In this view of things, 
Ferdinand VII, when restored, would be merely the first 
magistrate of the land. Further, the men of Cadiz swept 
away Feudahsm root and branch, dissolved the monastic Or- 
ders, and abohshed the Inquisition. This servile imitation of 
the French legislators of 1789-91 at once produced sharp 
friction; and Ferdinand, after his restoration in 18 14, found 
it easy to abrogate this imported constitution. Thus the 
misuse of the national idea by a few extremists at Cadiz, 
was destined to work infinite harm both to Spain herself 



68 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

and to the cause of democracy and nationality so unwisely 
championed. But it is only fair to remember that that 
cause had not a fair chance amidst the storms and excite- 
ments of so wholly exceptional an epoch. 

Despite its obvious faults, the Spanish constitution of 
1812 aroused much enthusiasm among neighboring peoples. 
During the period of reaction and despair which followed the 
downfall of Napoleon, the "Carbonari" of France and Italy 
and the "Liberales" of Spain continued to strive for the 
strange compromise of 181 2; and it took tangible form during 
a few months in Spain, Portugal, and Italy at the time of the 
democratic risings of 1820-2. Those risings failed; for the 
Austrian and other autocratic rulers (Louis XVIII among 
them) intervened to crush them; but the memories of popular 
liberty in Spain during the years 181 2-3 lived on; and, amidst 
the gloom of the time of reaction, the Spanish constitution of 
those years aroused fond recollections and hopes for the 
future. Especially was this so in Naples and Sicily, where the 
Spanish movement of the Napoleonic time helped on that 
which is associated with the names of Mazzini and Gari- 
baldi. 

If the Spanish movement of 1808-13 bears only a super- 
ficial resemblance to that of revolutionary France, still more 
did it diverge from that of Germany. We have already 
noticed one cause of that divergence, but others will now oc- 
cur to us. Napoleon imposed his supremacy on the Germans 
piecemeal and with some measure of caution. On the neck of 
the proudest people of Europe he forced his yoke with sudden 
and almost contemptuous insolence. Consequently, while 
the uprising of the Germans was not unlike the mounting of a 
tide over sandbanks, that of the Spaniards resembled an 
explosion. The difference was also due to diversities of 
national character and environment. The Spaniard was 
proud and resentful; the German of the eighteenth century 



THE SPANISH NATIONAL RISING 69 

was torpid and diffident. During four centuries the Spaniards 
had formed a nation. The average Teuton could neither 
remember nor imagine a time when all his people were united. 
The political helplessness of Germany led her sons to a 
humorous depreciation — witness these lines of Goethe's 
Faust, when the boon companions in Auerbach's cellar troll 
the catch: — 

"The Holy Roman Empire now 
How holds it together? " 

And again: — 

"Thank God, every mom, 
To rule the Roman Empire, that you were not bom. 
I bless my stars at least that mine is not 
Either a Kaiser's or a Chancellor's lot." 

No Spaniard would ever have sung those lines about the 
compact and glorious kingdom which had conquered, and 
still ruled over, the greater part of the New World. Nature, 
which had made the Spaniards a nation, seemed, until the 
year 18 12, to doom the Germans to division and helpless- 
ness. During the winter of 1807-8 Prussia's boldest son, 
Fichte, did not counsel revolt, only a system of national 
education with a view to some eventual revolt. The German 
movement therefore was no flash of passion, but rather the 
growth of an intellectual and moral conviction that Germany 
must some day form a nation. In the spread of that beUef, 
which became contagious when Napoleon's Grand Army 
reeled back frostbitten from Russia, lie the unique interest 
and the exceptional fruitfulness of the German movement. 
Heralded by a poet and a philosopher, it uplifted the people 
and bore them to a higher plane of existence. The national 
pohcy of the years 1808-13 began by improving and inspiring 
the individual; it ended by making an inteUigent and valiant 
nation. 



70 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

The blaze of wrath which flashed forth in Spain in 1808 
could not mature her national life. That Hfe was scorched, 
not ripened. No literary work of any note was forthcoming; 
and, apart from the abolition of Feudalism, no lasting re- 
forms resulted from the sudden and premature efforts of that 
time. For lack of preparation or wise guidance the national 
movement at Cadiz and Madrid went astray, and ended in 
poHtical reaction. The case of Spain, therefore, proves that 
an appeal to the past, and to a pride rooted in that past, may 
incite a people to great exertions; but, whatever their military 
results, they will have no effect on its development, and may 
drag it backwards. In short, nationality in its crudest form is 
merely an appeal to the emotions or passions and may arrest 
the progress of a people that indulges them. Under wise and 
strict control, as in the Germany of those years, it may further 
the cause of progress. In the case of revolutionary France, 
and still more of Spain, nationality was a narrowing influence, 
begetting intolerance towards neighbors and promoting the 
interests of despotism at home. 

These, I think, are the conclusions to be drawn from a 
survey of the Spanish movement in its wider issues. But 
now let us consider it, finally, in its bearing on the Napoleonic 
Wars. In that respect its importance can scarcely be over- 
rated. The spectacle of a nation challenging to mortal con- 
flict a powerful enemy that occupied her chief cities and had 
filched away her King stirred the blood of all nations, as does 
the sight of gallant Httle Serbia holding up against two 
military Empires on the North and her perfidious neighbor 
on the East.^ Moreover, the success of the Spanish efforts in 
the summer of 1808 at Baylen and Saragossa roused an excite- 
ment unequalled in that generation. The spell of invincibiUty 
that had long protected the French and bewildered their foes 
was broken, and forlorn peoples caught a gleam of hope. 
1 These words were spoken early in November, 1915. 



THE SPANISH NATIONAL RISING 71 

Germany, then writhing under the heel of Napoleon, ceased 
to despair. In October, 1808, the writer, Varnhagen von 
Ense, visiting his confrere, Jean Paul Richter, heard him say- 
that he never doubted that the Germans would one day rise 
against the French as the Spaniards had done. "The Span- 
iards were the refrain to everything, and we always returned 
to them." The statesman. Stein, actually prepared for a 
popular rising in Prussia like that of Spain, and when found 
out was driven from office and from Prussia by the order of 
Napoleon. Austria, whose subjects had fought against the 
French hopelessly and nervelessly, early in 1809 made a really 
national effort. In April the Archduke Charles issued this 
stirring appeal: ''The Uberty of Europe has taken refuge 
under your banners. Your victories will loose its fetters, and 
your brothers in Germany, yet in the ranks of the enemy, 
long for their dehverance." 

These hopes and aspirations were directly the outcome 
of the Spanish Rising. It is true that neither Spain nor 
Austria succeeded in those years. The Spaniards displayed 
no skill in organization and proved to be very exasperating 
allies. The Austrian Government and its generals behaved 
with their usual want of energy and enterprise. In both 
lands the spirit of the people far excelled the conduct of 
Governments and generals. But such a symptom bodes 
ill for the enemy. For ultimately the energy and deter- 
mination of the people will find leaders to give full effect 
to its resolves; and that happened in 1813-5. By that 
time the new national feelings of Spain and Germany were 
incarnated in formidable armies led by the ablest of their 
generals. 

During the four intervening years, generally marked by 
defeat, the fortitude of all patriots was tried to the utter- 
most. It may be well to recall the feelings of those dark 
days when the Napoleonic supremacy seemed irresistible. 



72 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

In May, 1809, the Quarterly Review thus described the situa- 
tion: — 

"A more tremendous system never appeared for the desolation 
and subjection of the world. Every country was to be compelled 
in succession to furnish men for the plunder and conquest of others. 
If any one nation presumed to be dissatisfied, the population of 
another was to be driven to arms to oppress it. . . . Napoleon's 
vast designs have been executed with the most lavish profusion of 
human blood. He cares neither for distance, famine, nor dis- 
ease. ... It is indifferent to him how many thousands of his 
troops drop from mere fatigue and want. It is sufficient that 
enough reach the point of action to accomplish his purposes. If 
he disperses the enemy, he gains a new extent of population to 
drive into his ranks, and to make the instruments, however un- 
willing, of new depredations. Being consumed so fast, there is no 
time for mutiny and little demand for pay. For a certain time, 
therefore, this terrible engine of war acts in his favor with dread- 
ful energy, though it is one which may ultimately recoil upon 
himself." 

Five weary years were to elapse before the spirit of na- 
tionality was completely embattled. Then it overthrew 
the great Emperor. In that time of awakening the people 
of Spain hold a foremost place; for they dared to beard the 
conqueror in his prime. Before they knew that England 
would help them they challenged the master of the Continent, 
Thus, once again, Europe showed the diversity of racial 
impulses that go to make up its life. The balance of that life 
has been in succession restored by races as far removed, as 
widely dissimilar, as the Franks, Dutch, English, Swedes, 
Poles, Spaniards, and Russians. The motives prompting 
these eft'orts were very different. Byron thus outlined the 
Spanish Rising: "Pride points the way to Liberty." That is 
true. The proud and passionate resentment of the Spaniards 
led the more phlegmatic peoples of the North into the crusade 



THE SPANISH NATIONAL RISING 73 

that finally overthrew the might of Napoleon. So long as the 
British and Spaniards held firmly together, he could not con- 
quer Europe; for it is of the very nature of World-Policy that, 
sooner or later, it provokes world-wide resistance. All honor 
to the two nations that first dared to offer an unbending 
resistance. 



LECTURE V 

MAZZINI AND YOUNG ITALY 

"Every people has its special mission, which will co-operate 
towards the fulfilment of the general mission of Humanity. That 
mission constitutes its nationality. Nationality is sacred." — 
Mazzini, 1834. 

Our previous studies have, I think, pointed to the con- 
clusion, that no popular movement has led to results of 
lasting importance, unless it proceeded from some forma- 
tive thought. If it be true, as Carlyle says, that the end 
of man is action, not thought, it is equally true that the 
beginning of all action is a thought; and the usefulness of 
the action corresponds to the correctness of the thought. 
Only where the thinkers have led the masses, and led them 
aright, has the resulting movement been well sustained 
and healthful in its effects. Where, as in the case of the 
Spanish Rising of 1808, the impulse has been that of out- 
raged pride and dignity, unconnected with the deeper con- 
victions of the mind, little has come of it. An explosion 
of terrific force took place, but thereafter everything tended 
to settle down in nearly the same condition as before. That 
is nationality in its elemental form, an almost blind im- 
pulse, which cannot lead to continued progress, and may 
even retard progress. 

But now we turn to a land where the popular impulse 
found wise and inspiring leaders. A cynic once called the 
Italian national movement "the poetry of politics." The 
taunt veiled a truth; for that movement initiated not only 
the poetry but the philosophy of modern politics. 

74 



MAZZINI AND YOUNG ITALY 75 

Nearly all movements start as a protest against a wrong; 
and the Italian movement is no exception to the rule. The 
people of the Peninsula struggled against the barriers im- 
posed on them by the Treaties of Vienna of 1814-5, which 
divided and enslaved them. A consciousness of their one- 
ness had grown among them during the Napoleonic regime, 
when unity of administration and comradeship in arms 
evoked a sense of manliness and citizenship. As Mrs. Brown- 
ing phrased it: — 

"Children use the fist, until they are of age 
To use the brain, . . . 
And so we needed Caesars to assist 
Man's justice, and Napoleons to explain 
God's counsel." 

In 18 1 5 came the cruel awakening. On a neck straighten- 
ing with national pride there now fell the yoke of two kings, 
a Pope, four dukes, and, worst of all, the military despotism 
of Austria in the North and North-East. It was in vain 
that Italians resisted. Austria, encamped in her Quad- 
rilateral, and strengthened by her Italian satraps, defied 
all the puny efforts of the subject race. In vain did the 
Carbonari strike down a general here, a police ofi&cer there, 
they could not drive out the white coats of Austria. All 
the tyrants made common cause; and, if one of them were 
in danger, the Hapsburgs sent down their legions to restore 
"order." As the mandatory of the Holy Alliance, Austria 
repressed not only every movement of the people but every 
proposal of an Italian ruler to admit them to the least share 
in the Government. She would neither reform herself nor 
let any Itahan State reform itself, for fear that her rule 
might seem the more odious by the contrast.^ In fact, 
the House of Hapsburg now became the chief barrier to 
1 Farini, The Roman States I, ch. I. 



76 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

national aspirations in Europe; and its Chancellor, Met- 
ternich, occupied the position formerly occupied by Napoleon 
as the deadliest enemy of nationahty. The Hapsburgs held 
down their Magyar and Slavonic subjects; they barred the 
way to an effective union of the German States; above all, 
they played the watch-dog to the sheepfolds in which the 
ItaHans were penned up. Austria strove to stifle thought 
in her dominions, as appeared in the injunction of the Em- 
peror Francis to the professors of the University of Pavia: 
*'Your duty is less to make learned men than faithful sub- 
jects." Consequently, every Italian patriot longed to drive 
the Austrians beyond the Alps.. On this topic there was 
practical unanimity. On aU else there were grave differ- 
ences. 

Putting aside smaller groups, we may single out from 
the patriots three parties: (i) Those who desired the su- 
premacy of the Pope; (2) those who championed the cause 
of the House of Savoy; (3) Republicans who desired the 
end both of monarchy and of the Temporal Power of the 
Popes, in order to frame an ItaUan Republic. 

The first party pointed to the services which the Popes 
had often rendered to the Italian cause, e. g. to the Holy 
League which Julius II formed in 15 10 for the expulsion 
of the foreigners from Italy. Naturally enough, they left 
out of count the occasions when the Papacy had sided with 
foreigners against the ItaUan cause; and the armed support 
which was consistently claimed from Austria by Gregory 
XVI during his pontificate (1831-46), alienated the respect 
of all patriots. Nevertheless, the mystical devotion of a 
priest, Gioberti, pointed to the Papacy as the rallying point 
for Italians. This was the theme of his book, The Moral 
and Civil Supremacy of the Italians (1843), a work which 
made a deep impression and contributed largely towards 
the election of a reforming Pope, Pius IX, in 1846. 



MAZZINI AND YOUNG ITALY 77 

The second party had its headquarters at Turin, and 
refused to admit a Papal hegemony. Even after the advent 
of a popular and reforming pontiff, they held to the belief 
that the House of Savoy alone could bring union or complete 
unity to the Peninsula. They pointed to the deep-seated 
abuses of clerical government in the Papal States, where 
only ten per cent of the people could read; also to the fact 
that those States, stretching from the Adriatic to the Tyr- 
rhene Sea, cut off the North from the South of Italy, and 
barred the way to political union. Finally, they claimed 
that their royal house, traditionally brave and patriotic, 
was the natural champion of Italy against Austria, and 
therefore the only hope of freedom and independence. The 
monarchists of Piedmont did not at first openly aim at 
national unity; for such an avowal would have exposed the 
House of Savoy to the charge of mere ambition. Ostensibly, 
then, their aim was to federalize Italy under the aegis of that 
dynasty; but the bolder spirits, headed by Cavour, always 
kept unity before them as the goal. Such a consummation 1 
was anathema to Gioberti and the neo-Guelfs. Looking | 
to the Pope as head of a future Itahan federation, they J 
perforce rejected the idea of Italian unity. Nationalism, j 
however, was the very breath of life to a third party, the ' 
Mazzinians, or Young Italy. ' 

Joseph Mazzini, born at Genoa in 1805, matured his> 
precocious intelligence in the decades following Waterloo, 
when Italy underwent the torture of division and servitude. 
Endowed with a highly sensitive nature, he hated the kings 
and dukes who divided and held down his people. As he 
wrote in 183 1: "There is not one of these princes who has 
not signed a compact with Austria in the blood of his sub- 
jects; not one whose past life is not a violent and insurmount- 
able barrier between him and the future of his people." As 
for Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, his timidity and vacil- 



78 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

lation finally brought him into the position of a renegade 
to the patriotic cause; and the young enthusiast even con- 
nived at an attempt at his assassination, i A theist by con- ; 
viction, Mazzini detested the Papacy on religious no less than 
political grounds. Further, the failure of the "moderates" 
in 1 83 1, and their cowardly abandonment by Louis PhiHppe, 
filled him with contempt for constitutional monarchy and 
all political compromises. Accordingly, during his time of 
exile at Marseilles in the autumn of that year, he matured 
the republican organization known as Young Italy. 

The name indicates its character. Despairing of the men 
of advanced years, who were nearly all "moderates"; de- 
spairing, too, of all help from France and England, where 
dull moderation sat enthroned, Mazzini appealed in burning 
words to the youth of Italy to raise the red, white, and green 
flag for the Republic and for national unity. In the first 
document of the Association he explained what he meant 
by a nation and also the Italian nation: "By the nation 
we understand the totahty of Italians bound together by a 
common pact and governed by the same laws." This defini- 
tion marks a great advance on that of Fichte and all pre- 
vious thinkers. The only objection to it is the emphasis 
which it lays on Rousseau's idea of a common pact, which 
is certainly not essential to the forming of a nation. 

Equally significant are the boundaries of the future ItaHan 
State. They will be from the River Var, in Nice, to Trieste 
on the North-East, and will comprise the Trentino; also 
"the islands proved Italian by the language of the inhabi- 
tants." This description would include Corsica and several 
islands of the Adriatic; but it is worthy of note that Mazzini 
did not claim for Italy the Dalmatian coast-line, which he 
knew to be Slavonic, not Italian. Though there is a veneer 
of Italian culture in some of the towns on the coast, yet 
the great body of the population is Slavonic, closely akin 



MAZZINI AND YOUNG ITALY 79 

to the Serbs, or, in the North, to the Croats. It is, therefore, 
certain that Mazzini, if he were now aHve, would heartily 
approve of Italy attacking Austria in order to recover the 
Trentino and Trieste; but he would disapprove of those 
eager patriots who hanker after the Dalmatian coast because 
it once belonged to Venice. In his eyes the historic argu- 
ment weighs Hght as against the instincts of the people 
concerned. We can imagine his scorn at the argument 
that Italy must have Dalmatia because she has no good 
harbor in the Adriatic. He decides the question on the 
ground of nationality, not on the naval considerations which 
have so often worked mischief. He claims for Italy only 
those islands where the inhabitants are ItaHan. Thus his 
nationalism is thoroughly fair as between ItaHans and Slavs. 
He leaves the Slavonic islands and all the lands East of 
the Adriatic to the Slavs; and, if the ItaHans are wise enough 
to recognize that those islands and all the Dalmatian coast 
are properly Slavonic, not Italian, Europe will avoid com- 
pHcations that may in the future lead to war. 

Mazzini then explained that Italy ought to be a Repub- 
lic, because there were no truly monarchical elements in the 
Peninsula, and her best epochs were those of republican rule. 
Further, an Italian monarchy would be reduced to bargain 
with and imitate other Courts; whereas Mazzini detested 
compromise with and imitation of foreigners, as certain 
to weaken and degrade Italy's mission to mankind. His 
soaring idealism also rejected both the federal schemes and 
insisted on unity as the aim of Italian strivings. The Pope 
in the centre, the two kings at the extremities, the Aus- 
trians in the North-East and their four ducal satraps — all 
must go, because they hindered that absolutely free inter- 
course of the people which was essential to the full develop- 
ment of the Italian Family. To divide it up under eight 
different governments would be equivalent to tying the 



8o NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

body-politic with so many ligaments fatal to the free circu- 
lation of the blood. 

Mazzini had boundless faith in human nature and its 
lofty destinies. In his view the life of the human race was 
essentially one. True, there were great differences between 
this and that race. He never held Fichte's early opinion, 
that all the nations were alike, and followed the same aims. 
He regarded them as members of the great human family, 
not rivals engaged in ceaseless competition and strife. He 
also hoped that, if the members were allowed free play, they 
would come to see their true interests towards each other 
and to the family of which they formed a part. But, said 
he, they could not see this truth if they led a cramped and 
artificial existence. Therefore, Italy must attain to her 
free life, not for any selfish purpose; certainly not in or- 
der to invade and despoil her neighbors, but rather that 
she may minister to their welfare. She will gain unity 
for the purpose of carrying out her mission to other 
nations. 

As to the nature of that mission Mazzini nowhere gave 
a definite, answer. In the programme of Young Italy he 
pointed out that Europe was undergoing a series of changes 
destined to transform European Society into large and 
compact masses. The large States, or federations of States, 
were absorbing small States; large towns were growing at' 
the expense of small towns or villages: the big factory was 
superseding the small workshop and cottage industries. 
What would be the upshot of it all? Would the new ag- 
glomerations be peaceful or aggressive, healthy or noxious? 
That was an urgent question, and it still is. How Italy 
could help to solve these political and social problems Maz- 
zini does not explain. Later on, he felt his way towards 
a partial answer. Meanwhile he insisted on Italy gaining 
an unfettered existence. This he defined as follows: "With- 



MAZZINI AND YOUNG ITALY 8l 

out unity of religious belief and unity of social pact; without 
unity of civil, political, and penal legislation, there is no true 
nation." 

The ideal is lofty. Unity of religious belief is hard to 
attain and keep in the modern world; and it is strange that 
one who had broken away from the Roman CathoHc Church 
should postulate it as essential. Again, legal unity is desir- 
able, but scarcely attainable without doing violence to local 
customs. Mazzini's requirements would also rule out Swit- 
zerland from the list of nations. Yet, as we have seen, the 
Swiss form a nation. His aim, doubtless, was to hold up a 
lofty ideal which should inspire Piedmontese, Venetians, 
Tuscans, Romans, and Neapolitans with a passion for self- 
sacrifice. Nothing short of utter self-sacrifice could nerve 
them to the colossal task of breaking their eight prison- 
houses and forming a national home. What a task! To 
expel Austria, to destroy the Temporal Power of the Papacy, 
and to dethrone six Italian sovereigns. What wonder that 
he pitched his aims high! The fault of all his predecessors 
lay in their proneness to bargain and compromise — tactics 
which gained some outside help but stifled the enthusiasm 
of Italians sons. Mazzini sought to arouse that enthusiasm. 
It throbs in every sentence of the oath which Young Italy 
imposed at initiation: — 

"In the name of God and of Italy. In the name of all the 
martyrs of the holy Italian cause who have fallen beneath foreign 
and domestic tyranny. ... By the love I bear to the country 
that gave my mother birth, and will be the home of my chil- 
dren. ... By the blush that rises to my brow when I stand before 
the citizens of other lands, to know that I have no rights of citizen- 
ship, no country, and no national flag. By the memory of our 
former greatness, and the sense of our present degradation. By 
the tears of Italian mothers for their sons dead on the scaffold, in 
prison, or in exile. By the sufferings of the millions — I swear to 



82 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

dedicate myself wholly and for ever to strive to constitute Italy one 
free, independent, republican nation." 

Such was the enterprise undertaken by a group of penni- 
less Italian exiles at Marseilles in the autumn of 1831. They 
aimed at arousing Italians, whether in Italy or South Amer- 
ica,^ to a sense of duty to the nation; and out of their slender 
means they started a journal, Young Italy. When expelled 
from France by Louis Philippe's Government, they sought 
refuge in Switzerland; and a few of them attempted a raid 
into Piedmont which completely failed. In fact, most of 
their undertakings were so ill-timed and imprudent, as to 
lead to a useless effusion of blood. But nothing could long 
daunt Mazzini. Whether hunted about Switzerland, or 
vegetating in distress among Italian organ-grinders in Hatton 
Garden, he (with the exception of some dark hours of doubt 
and despair) maintained a firm resolve to persevere in his 
quest. 

This fixed determination was fed from diverse sources. 
His nature, though intensely nervous and far from strong, 
was singularly buoyant. It rallied soon, even after trials 
and reverses that depressed men of sounder physique. His 
mind, too, possessed that sharp edge, that rigid grip, which 
fortified him against disappointment. Under soft and almost 
feminine features there worked a powerful brain, a steel-like 
will. Moreover, his personality brought him troops of 
friends. His conversation charmed and delighted all who 
came near him. Men so diverse in character as Carlyle, 
George Meredith, and Joseph Cowen of Newcastle, acknowl- 
edged the spell of his presence. Meredith, in Vittoria, 
speaks ecstatically of his *' large, soft, dark, meditative eyes," 
which drew in the soul of the observer into the midst of a 

1 In Uruguay, Joseph Garibaldi [born at Nice in 1807] was won back 
for the Italians by Mazzini's propaganda. 



MAZZINI AND YOUNG ITALY 8$ 

"capacious and vigorous mind"; of his smile which "came 
softly as a curve in water," which "seemed to flow with 
and to pass in and out of his thoughts, to be a part of his 
emotion and his meaning when it shone transiently full. 
For, as he had an orbed mind, so he had an orbed nature." 
Mrs. Hamilton King, in that inspired poem. The Disciples, 
tells enthusiastically how 

"the orb of that great human soul 
Did once deflect and draw this orb of mine 
Until it touched and trembled on the line 
By which my orbit crossed the plane of his." 

And Swinburne, in A Song of Italy, hails him as the first of 
her liberators. He hymns the Italians as: 

"Thy children, ev'n thy people thou hast made, 
Thine, with thy words arrayed. 
Clothed with thy thoughts, and girt with thy desires. 
Yearn up towards thee like fires." 

Not that Mazzini was devoid of faults of character. They 
were the excess of his qualities, but some of them were seri- 
ous. His convictions were so intense as to blind him often 
to the good advice of others. Hence he was often intolerant 
towards those who differed from him. But these defects 
belong rather to Mazzini, the man of action, than to Mazzini, 
the thinker; and we are concerned solely with his political 
thought, not with his many abortive conspiracies or even 
with his highest achievement, the administration of the 
Roman RepubHc of 1849. 

In this sphere of thought he had one great advantage over 
his German predecessors. They were so obsessed by the 
idea of the State as to work their way tardily and doubt- 
fully to the idea of the nation. This was natural. In modern 



84 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

Germany the Prussian State overshadowed everything else; 
and under it the German nation loomed nebulous. There- 
fore, the German thinkers on nationality (except during the 
ill-starred democratic efforts of 1848-9) tended to Prussianize 
their notions and often became hide-bound bureaucrats. 
Not so with the Italians. They were not overshadowed 
by the Sardinian State; and they detested every other State 
of the Peninsula. Consequently, the political thought of 
Italy was free from the distracting influence of the State 
idea. The Italian thinkers, including Balbo, Cavour, Ma- 
miani, and Gioberti, saw the nation clearly; and for them 
the State was merely the concrete embodiment of the na- 
tional idea. In Germany the national idea was Prussianized, 
to its infinite harm. The Italian idea was never in danger 
of being Sardinianized; though Mazzini, amidst the disap- 
pointments of old age, declared that to have been its fate. 

During his manhood, Mazzini not only saw clearly, but 
beHeved absolutely in, the nation. The story of Italy's 
past as well as her natural tendencies to unity combined 
to nurture in him a profound belief in her future. In common 
with all thinkers who have exercised a lasting influence on 
their fellows, he was pre-eminently a man of faith; and his 
creed for Italy aroused a unique fervor, because it formed 
part of a far wider creed — the Gospel of Humanity. No- 
where does he describe the creed in set terms. No prophet 
ever does. But we catch a glimpse of his meaning in these 
words: — 

"When in my earliest years I believed that the initiative of the 
third life of Europe would spring from the heart, the action, the 
enthusiasm, and the sacrifices of our people, I heard within me the 
grand voice of Rome sounding once again; its utterances treasured 
up and accepted with loving reverence by the peoples, and telling 
of moral unity and fraternity in a faith common to all Human- 
ity. ... I saw Rome in the name of God and a republican Italy 



MAZZINI AND YOUNG ITALY 85 

substituting a Declaration of Principles for the sterile Declaration 
of Rights; . . . and I saw Europe, weary of scepticism, egotism, 
and anarchy, accept the new faith with acclamations." 

The Genoese republican here speaks almost with the tongue 
of the old monarchist of Florence. This neo-Roman creed 
is a modem version of the De Monarchid of Dante. Rome 
(not the city of the Popes but the centre of a world-republic) 
calls the peoples about her to listen to the voice of faith and 
authority, faith in the perfectibiUty of man, authority in- 
herent in the genius of the eternal City. A dream, you will 
say. Well! a glorious dream. It inspired Mazzini to struggle 
on through a life full of disaster, until, as he breathed his 
last at Pisa in 1872, his ideals lay shattered by collision with 
coarse reality. That faith must have been intense which 
impelled him forward, and which, working through him, 
impelled many thousands of Italians to endure prison, exile, 
torture, and execution for the cause. An intense faith like 
his evades mere analysis. Cold criticism misses the soul of 
it. If we ask — ^What do you mean by your neo-Romanism? — 
we receive an inadequate answer. The disciple may reply — 
Rome has twice given laws to the world, once through the 
matchless organization of the old Empire, and again through 
the decrees of the Church; therefore she is destined a third 
tune to initiate an era for mankind. "Not proven," the 
logician will say. "Contrary to the tendencies of Vatican 
policy," the historian will say. Mazzini and his disciples 
ignored both objectors. The eye of faith saw Rome rid her- 
self of Vaticanism and with magical power gather Italians 
about her in order to revivify the life of all peoples. 

The conception was not wholly visionary. Mazzini was 
convinced that French democrats at the time of the great 
Revolution had gone utterly astray. That is the meaning 
of his phrase, "the sterile Declaration of Rights," a reference 



86 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

to the Declaration of the Rights of Man drawn up by the 
Constituent Assembly in August-September, 1789. In its 
place Rome, the true birth-place of law, was to sound forth 
a Declaration of the Duties of Man. 

This is the bed-rock of Mazzinian doctrine. Let us test 
it. He declares the French Rights of Man to be sterile; 
and elsewhere he terms that programme false, hurtful, the 
mother of selfishness and strife. Thus, in Faith and the 
Future (1835): — 

"Right ^ is the faith of the individual. Duty is the common 
collective faith. Right can but organize resistance; it may destroy, 
it cannot found. Duty builds up, associates, and unites; it is 
derived from a general law, whereas Right is derived only from 
human will. There is nothing, therefore, to forbid a struggle 
against Right. Any individual may rebel against any Right of 
another individual which is injurious to him; and the sole judge 
between the adversaries is force; and such, in fact, has frequently 
been the answer which societies based upon Right have given 
to their opponents. Societies based upon Duty would not be com- 
pelled to have recourse to force. Duty, once admitted as the rule, 
excludes the possibility of struggle, and by rendering the individual 
subject to the general aim, it cuts at the very root of those 
evils which Right is unable to prevent. . . . The doctrine of 
Rights puts an end to sacrifice and cancels martyrdom from the 
world." 

Such is the moral elevation of this teaching that we are 
apt at first to overlook its good sense. But students of the 
French Revolution, who look beneath the surface of events, 
will realize the truth of Mazzini's criticism. The fact that 
the reformers of 1789 laid stress only upon the Rights of Man 
produced at once the wrong kind of impression both on the 

^Mazzini in this passage uses the term "Right" as equivalent to 
"The theory of individual Rights." 



MAZZINI AND YOUNG ITALY 87 

deputies and the people at large. They were led to regard 
politics as a struggle in which you seize what you can for 
your class and yourself. In the course of such a struggle the 
rights of others are disregarded; they resist; and the only 
method of deciding the issue is in the last resort by tumult 
or by civil war. To emphasize the rights of the individual 
in the summer of 1789, when the old order was vanishing 
amid the flare of burning castles, was the very worst training 
for the young French democracy; for it accentuated the ego- 
tism of the time, which needed to be kept under restraint. In 
the absence of the old authority, the only method of pre- 
serving order was a sense of civic duty, which would pre- 
scribe first and foremost a feeling of regard for the common 
weal, a conviction that the new democratic system must be 
based on the loyalty and self-restraint of the masses. Some 
deputies (e. g. the Abbe Gregoire and Camus) realized this 
all-important truth. Mounier's committee on the constitu- 
tion proposed an article (coming just after the definition of 
Rights) which thus defined duty: "The duty of everyone 
consists in respecting the rights of others." But the Assembly 
struck out this article and also another phrase binding them 
to prescribe the Duties of Man. A motion of Camus to that 
effect was defeated on August 4 by 570 votes to 433. One 
member went so far as to say that the duties of man spring 
naturally from his rights — a disastrous blunder, which was to 
cost France dear.^ Its result was seen in the rampant in- 
dividualism of the following months, when politics degener- 
ated into a game of grab and the Revolution into a tug-of-war 
between hostile parties. The tendencies towards anarchy 
were quickened; and seeing that anarchy leads, sooner or 
later, to a military despotism, Mazzini scarcely exaggerated 
when he summed up the dynamics of the time in this sug- 
gestive formula: ''The French Revolution, having begun 
^Hist. parlementaire de la Rev. frangaise, II, 177, 222. 



88 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

with a Declaration of the Rights of Man, could end only in 
a man, Napoleon." 

The French Revolution, running in this vicious circle, 
fatally prejudiced the success of the democratic experiment. 
Mazzini maintained that it merely closed an old era, the era 
of individualism, and did not initiate the new era, the era 
of collective energies inspired by duty. This, then, was 
to be the mission of Italy. Looking back over her annals, 
blood-stained but ennobled by the unceasing self-sacrifice 
of her best sons, he believed that so much suffering must lead 
to a noble consummation. Community in suffering had 
weakened the old local feelings: the glory of dying for la 
patria had aroused generous feelings which would banish 
political egotism. Italy, therefore, was the chosen land of the 
future; and from Rome would sound forth the gospel of duty 
which Paris had stifled. This is the essence of Mazzini's 
faith— no blind instinct, but a belief based on knowledge 
of the past. France had lost her opportunity. England was 
a land of timid compromise. From Italy, when fully aroused, 
would come the life-giving message, that all the peoples were 
bound together by the sacred tie of duty towards Humanity. 

Mazzini beHeved that this inspiring ideal would widen 
the outlook of Italian patriots. They must be true patriots 
in order to deaden petty local jealousies. But they would 
not cast the slough of provincialism in order to encase them- 
selves in the mail of patriotism. The idea of duty must 
reign in the national sphere. The Italian Republic of the 
future must consult, not its own interests primarily, but those 
of aU nations, an ideal which would finally sterilize national 
rivalries. Or, as he developed the theme in his Duties of 
Man (1858), family duty saves a man from being hide-bound 
in egotism; the national idea ought to exorcize merely family 
or clan selfishness; while duty to mankind will raise national 
patriotism on to that higher level where wars of aggrandize- 



MAZZINI AND YOUNG ITALY 89 

ment become impossible. As he pithily phrased it: "You are 
men before you are citizens or fathers.''^ ^ 

On the other hand, he reminded those who sneered at 
patriotism, and put their trust only in cosmopolitanism, 
that theirs was a futile creed. How can you attain to the 
vague and vast ideal of Humanity unless you have midway 
some intermediate form of association? How can individuals, 
as mere units, move the world? Of course, the thing is 
impossible save to a handful of idealists. The masses must 
have something tangible to work on. To take a parallel case. 
The nation can effectively exist only where men are first 
banded together in towns and counties. Because narrow- 
minded people cannot see beyond their town or county, you 
do not therefore abolish the organization of the town or 
county. You retain that organization and seek to widen 
their outlook, so that the Yorkshireman or the Devonshire- 
man may attain to the nobler pride of being an Englishman. 
During long ages tribe fought with tribe, county with county, 
then Scots with English. But the tendency, though painfully 
slow, is sure, which endows men with the wider vision; and 
then these local strifes of Irish and English, Venetians and 
Genoese, Lombards and Tuscans, seem absurd. They die of 
themselves because men have gained the broader view, and 
use these local sentiments as means of attaining to a higher 
level than would be possible if they sought to reach it by a 
single bound. The cosmopolitan, who sneers at his country 
and raves about Humanity, is like a man who disdains the use 
of stairs and seeks to leap to the first floor. Such efforts 
have always failed. To ignore the tremendous force of 
nationality, and grasp at a vague cosmopolitanism by means 
of groups and unions, is to bridge the torrent by gossamer, as 
recent events have shown. No! The true line of advance is, 
not to sneer at nationality and decry patriotism, but to try to 
1 Mazzini, Duties of Man [Everyman edit.], ch. 5, 



90 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

utilize those elemental forces by imparting to them a true 
aim, instead of the false aim which has deluged Europe with 
blood. 

No part of Mazzini's teaching is sounder than that which 
deals with the necessity of recognizing the patriotic instinct 
as fundamental to human nature, and also of educating and 
directing it to nobler ends than those to which it has so often 
been perverted. To the Italian workingmen, some of whom 
were running after cosmopolitan will-o'-the-wisps, he gave 
this wise advice: "Do not be led away by the idea of improv- 
ing your material conditions without first solving the na- 
tional question. You cannot do it." And again: "In labor- 
ing, according to true principles, for our country we are 
laboring for Humanity. Our country is the fulcrum of the 
lever which we have to wield for the common good. If we 
give up this fulcrum, we run the risk of becoming useless both 
to our country and to Humanity." ^ 

On the question of assuring political unity to his divided 
and oppressed countrymen, Mazzini accepted no compro- 
mise. He would not hear of a federalized Italy, vegetating 
under the shadow of the Vatican. On the surface that 
scheme of Gioberti (outlined above) seemed easy to realize; 
and in 1846, when the reforming Pope Pius IX was elected, its 
chances seemed roseate. Gioberti appealed to history and 
tradition as proving that Italians needed a large measure of 
freedom of action in local affairs; and he summed up his con- 
tention in these impressive words: "To suppose that Italy, 
divided as she has been for many centuries, can peacefully 
submit to the rule of one man is mere folly. To desure that it 
should come about by violent means is a crime." 

Well! The folly has been committed. The crime has 
been perpetrated. The impossible has come to pass. Thanks 
to the fiery zeal kindled by Mazzini; thanks also to the sword 
* Mazzini, Duties of M(in, pp. 54, 55. 



MAZZINI AND YOUNG ITALY 91 

of Victor Emmanuel, the diplomacy of Cavour, and the self- 
sacrificing heroism of Garibaldi, Italy is united, though not 
in the form of a Republic. The causes of the failure of the 
Republic do not concern us here. The ideal of Mazzini was 
unattainable, but not because the Italians rejected it. On 
the contrary, they rallied to it enthusiastically and in large 
numbers. In the early half of 1849, when Mazzini was the 
leading Triumvir of the Roman Republic, with Garibaldi as 
virtual commander of the troops; when also brave Manin and 
the Venetians kept the banner of the Republic flying against 
the shot and shell of Austria, there was some ground for 
hoping that the cause of Young Italy would survive. All 
depended on the action of the young French Republic; and 
if that Government had granted the support which Mazzini 
at first expected, France and Italy might have expelled 
Austria's white coats, as they did ten years later. The fate 
of Young Italy was sealed when the French Republic (or 
rather its President, Louis Napoleon) attacked the Roman 
Republic, while Austria wore down the defenders of Venice. 
The Italian Republic was crushed by foreign intervention; 
and the Judas of the time was Louis Napoleon. 

Nevertheless, though Young Italy lay crushed in the 
summer of 1849; though Mazzini and Garibaldi barely 
escaped with their lives; though French bayonets supported 
the Pope at the Vatican, and the white coats of Austria 
terrorized the North, Italy did not die. She lay stunned and 
bleeding under the heels of the autocrats. Napoleon III and 
Francis Joseph. But she had caught life-giving words that 
were more potent than the bayonet and the gibbet. Garibaldi 
had shown that her sons could fight on equal terms with the 
best troops in Europe. The "honest King," Victor Em- 
manuel, was a centre of hope; and his Minister, Cavour, 
sought by all possible means to remedy the disasters of 1849 
by pitting France against Austria. He succeeded; and the 



92 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

Italian monarchy of to-day is largely the outcome of his 
masterly statecraft. Even Cavour and Victor Emmanuel, 
however, would not have succeeded but for the faith and 
enthusiasm kindled by Mazzini. Men who are nerved by a 
conviction of the justice and beneficence of their cause are 
not daunted by one or two disasters. As Mazzini wrote after 
the surrender of Rome to the French: "What was failure to 
men who were imbued with our beliefs? " 

That faith was rooted more deeply than in a merely na- 
tional patriotism. The men of Young Italy shed their blood, 
not merely that their country might gain the unity she so 
much needed, but in order to assure her civilizing mission to 
mankind at large. They caught a vision of other peoples 
freed and regenerated. In words which are prophetic, if not 
for his day, then perhaps for ours, Mazzini thus outlined the 
future: "The map of Europe will be remade. The countries 
of the peoples will arise, defined by the voice of the free, upon 
the ruins of the countries of kings and privileged castes. 
Between these countries there will be harmony aiid brother- 
hood. . . . Then each of you, strong in the affections and aid 
of many millions of men speaking the same language and 
educated in the same historic tradition, may hope by your 
personal effort to benefit the whole of Humanity." 

Yes: the map of Europe is now to be remade. The re- 
making can proceed on two methods; either on force or 
on a sense of duty; either on the military results and the 
calculations deduced therefrom, or according to the dic- 
tates of justice and enlightened common sense. If the peace 
of the year 1916 or 1917 be merely the law of the strongest, 
expressed in terms of their actual losses and hoped-for gains, 
it will be the parent of future wars. If, however, the settle- 
ment be dictated by a deep sense of public duty both towards 
the present and future generations, then the future may prove 
to be that which the prophetic eye of Mazzini discerned. 



LECTURE VI 

THE AWAKENING OF THE SLAVS 

There is a homely saying, "It takes all kinds of people to 
make the world." And this, which is said of individuals, 
is equally true of the peoples. The richness of the life of 
Europe is due mainly to the variety of its races and to their 
strong individuality. Their competition in the spheres of 
thought and action, even their collisions in war, are healthier 
than the stagnation produced by the dead uniformity of the 
life of pre-reform China. Even to-day, surely, it is true: 

"Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay." 

To dash off the characteristics of the European peoples 
would lead merely to smart epigrams, and I will not attempt 
it. It is impossible to assess correctly the peculiarities even 
of the subdivisions of the great family which we are now 
attempting to study. But there is a general likeness about 
all the Slavs, especially those who still remain in the great 
plain of East Europe. 

Those wind-swept steppes, where winter fastens a relent- 
less grip for five months and then breaks into a brief spring 
and an almost torrid summer, beget extremes of character. 
The long and bitter cold fosters the virtues of toughness 
and endurance, also of firm comradeship. For the millions 
of Russian peasants life is a stern struggle, and only by hold- 
ing stoutly together in their Mir, or village commune, have 
they survived. The drought of summer is equally to be 
dreaded. A prey, therefore, to extremes of climate, the 
peasant develops a tenacity unequalled except among races 

93 



94 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

that struggle against the sea; and there is in the landsman of 
the East more of resignation and melancholy than is found 
among the seamen of the West. When the Muscovite has 
fought on to the very end and knows he is beaten, he lies 
down and dies with the fatalism of the Asiatic. The Slavs, 
essentially an emotional people, have been moulded by this 
life of extremes. Both they, their literature, and their musip 
are intense and passionate; but an undertone of melancholy 
pervades even their outbursts and their excesses. It is the 
grund-motiv of the Russian winter. 

Their great enemy of peace time is also their best friend 
in war time. From the dawn of history in the days of Herodo- 
tus the dwellers in the great plains have, with the aid of this 
fearsome ally, worsted all invaders. Darius, the Tartars, 
the Poles, Charles XII of Sweden, Napoleon (shall I add 
Hindenburg?) recoiled, shattered. On the other hand, the 
plain-dwellers have been remarkable for a certain want of 
enterprise in war. In campaigns far from home they have 
rarely been formidable, except against Turks and Tartars. 
Russia, while strong for defence, is weak for offence. She 
resembles Antaeus rather than Hercules. Her people and her 
Government lack the resourcefulness, foresight, and organ- 
izing capacity needful for the success of distant expeditions. 
Professor Brandes goes so far as to say: "Passivity shows 
itself in their public and private life, in the submission to the 
powers that be. . . . Though the Russians are a brave and 
a remarkably steadfast people in war, they are the most 
peaceful and unwarHke people in the world." ^ 

This is a Httle exaggerated; for Russian Tsars have given 
rein to warlike ambitions; and their people have followed 
them; but the people themselves cling to their homes, to 
their creed, and to the old ways. From the time when the 
Greek colonists of the North Euxine gazed with terror on the 
* G. Brandes, Impressions of Russia, p. 26. 



THE AWAKENING OF THE SLAVS 95 

Scythian tribes moving about in their quaint caravans, 
those barbarians were far less formidable than they appeared. 
Only when pressed from the East, in the Dark Ages, did 
they or their successors send forth swarms that overran 
Europe. Considering her vast bulk, Russia has played a 
curiously small part in European history. Her natural trend 
was towards Asia rather than Central Europe; and she rarely 
moved westwards except after attacks from the west. 

The first event that thoroughly aroused her from Oriental 
torpor was the invasion of Napoleon in 18 12. Untaught by 
his failure to break down the resistance of the Spaniards, 
he strove to wear them out in the South- West and the Mus- 
covites in the North-East, though in both cases he con- 
fronted an enraged people, unconquerable if only they would 
persevere. The Hfe of Russia was widespread, impalpable, 
scattered through myriads of villages, each of which, thanks 
to the Mir, was a self-sufficing unit. So soon as these units 
were resolutely of one mind, the only thing left for the in- 
vader was— to decamp. 

Among the many perversities of that curious book. Power 
and Liberty, Tolstoi hit upon an undoubted truth, that 
Napoleon's Grand Army had to leave Moscow because the 
peasants burnt their corn and fodder rather than let the 
French have it. The triumph was essentially a national 
triumph; and the spirit of the Russian troops led even single 
individuals to attack the French during the long retreat. 
In a military sense, the Russian pursuit was often tardy and 
ineffective; but General Winter did his work thoroughly; 
and the Russian people have never lost the feeling of pride 
in that overthrow of the great Emperor. It was in Spain 
and Russia that he encountered forces beyond even his power, 
the strength of a truly national resistance. 

As in Spain, however, the new patriotism was soon diverted 
into reactionary paths. The Tsar, Alexander I, drifted away 



96 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

from the Liberalism of his youth; and, worst of all, he did 
not keep troth with the Poles. That gifted people had done 
and suffered much for Napoleon; and in 1 8 14-5 Alexander 
held out to them the hope of a national kingdom under his 
suzerainty. The autonomous Kingdom of Poland soon 
vanished, and Alexander's suzerainty became a despotism. 
Since then there has been no real union of sentiment between 
Poles and Russians, and the latent hostility of the Poles to 
Russia is, perhaps, the chief of the weaknesses of that Em- 
pire. That huge organism has never been thoroughly unified. 
It is an agglomerate, in which the Great Russians of the North 
and North Centre predominate; but their hard and practical 
nature consorts ill with the more sensitive Little Russians 
of the South, the Poles of the West, and the Finns of the 
North- West. Whether these peoples will ever cordially unite 
is one of the problems of the future. Certainly, the autocracy 
has failed to unite them. Perhaps this war, and after the war, 
democracy, will accomplish the feat. Russian enthusiasts 
are confident that democracy will succeed where despotism 
has failed. In this respect the development of Russia pre- 
sents a signal contrast to that of Prussia and Germany, which 
has been vitally connected with the House of HohenzoUern. 
That House has unified the German people, and, since uni- 
fication, has drilled them with Prussian rigor. Whatever 
be the faults of the Tsardom, it has not cast all the Russians 
into the same mould; but perhaps the failure to unify them 
results from the lack of cohesion which has always marked 
the Slav peoples. They have attained to a racial feeling, but 
not to the wider feeling which may be termed national. 

The centrifugal tendencies of the Slavs of the Austrian 
Empire are also very marked. Limiting our attention here 
to the South Slavs, we notice that the awakening of their 
national sentiment somewhat preceded that of the Russians. 
Nature and the current of events had alike been unfavorable 



THE AWAKENING OF THE SLAVS 97 

to the South Slavs. Their furthest off-shoots on the South- 
West had settled in the mountainous country a little to the 
North-East and East of the Adriatic. Those living north of 
Trieste and around Laybach are termed Slovenes; those 
further East are Croats; those to the South-East, Serbs. 
The Slovenes are almost completely cut off from the Adriatic 
by a thin but tough belt of Itahans around Trieste; and the 
Croats and Serbs, who stretch as far as that sea, have long 
been severed from it poHtically by the Venetian RepubHc 
and by its heir, Austria. Those Powers kept a tight hold on 
the coast line and rigorously subjected the Slavonic popula- 
tion. It has never been Itahanized, still less Austrianized. 
These Slavs, cut off from effective use of the sea, and divided 
between Hapsburg, Venetian, and Ottoman rule, remained 
in a state of torpor until about the time of the French Revolu- 
tion, when the blows dealt by the RepubHcan armies to Venice 
and Austria awakened the Slovenes and Croats. Already the 
latter had resisted the attempts of the Magyars to denation- 
alize them. In the Hungarian Diet the proud nobiles began 
to use the Magyar tongue instead of Latin. The Croat 
deputies resisted; and in 1805 the Bishop of Agram advocated 
the use of the Slavonic tongue in public speech and documents. 
Thus the national sentiment of the South Slavs was first 
excited by Magyar aggressions at the expense of their mother- 
tongue. 

Next, the blows of Napoleon fell on the House of Haps- 
burg. After Austerlitz he compelled Austria to cede East 
Venetia, Istria, and part of Dalmatia to his new Kingdom 
of Italy. After the campaign of Wagram, he forced her to 
give up the lands which he styled the Illyrian Provinces, 
and they formed part of the French Empire during the years 
1809-13. Marshal Marmont, the new Governor, introduced 
the Code Napoleon and many of the benefits of the French 
administration. The effects were very marked. These 



98 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

South Slavs, previously divided and misgoverned, now en- 
tered into a large and generous polity. The French encour- 
aged the official use of the Slovene and Croat languages, 
which had previously been proscribed; and a new national 
feeling was aroused by newspapers and books written in the 
vernacular. Such was the gratitude of these downtrodden 
peoples to the French Emperor that the poet Vodnik sang 
his praises in an ode, entitled Risen Illyria: "Napoleon has 
said * Awake: arise, Illyria.' She wakes, she sighs — 'Who 
recalls me to the light? O great hero, is it thou who wakest 
me? Thou reachest to me thy mighty hand; thou liftest me 
up.' . . . 'Resting one hand on Gaul, I give the other to 
Greece that I may save her. At the head of Greece is Corinth ; 
in the centre of Europe is Illyria. Corinth is called the eye of 
Greece. Illyria shall be the jewel of the whole world. '" On 
the fall of Napoleon, the Slovenes again reverted to Austria, 
and the Croats to Hungary. Again the Magyars began their 
attempts to Magyarize, but encountered an equally obstinate 
resistance, the Croat and Serb provinces declaring their equal- 
ity of rights with the Hungarian. They were sister provinces, 
not daughter provinces.-^ 

When part of an oppressed people gains the boon of self- 
expression it is natural that the other part, which is still 
gagged, should struggle ceaselessly. Already the Serbs 
had striven valiantly against Turkish tyranny. They never 
despaired of casting off their vassalage to the infidel; for deep 
in their hearts was the memory of the glorious days of King 
Dushan, who, about 1350, ruled over all the lands from Philip- 
popolis to Agram, and southwards as far as Corinth. Serbia 
was then the most powerful State of South-East Europe, 
and owned ports on the ^Egean and Adriatic. At the capital, 
Uskub, Dushan held a splendid Court, Greeks, Bulgars, 

iL6ger, Austria-Hungary, p. 440: Seton- Watson, The Southern Slav 
Question, pp. 25-9. 



THE AWAKENING OF THE SLAVS 99 

even the proud Magyars bowing before Serb supremacy. 
This promising civiHzation fell at one blow. The Turks 
burst upon it and levelled it to the ground at the Battle of 
Kossovo (1389). A legend, preserved ever since in ballad 
form, tells how the fate of Serbia and of Christendom was 
decided by the treachery of a Serb chieftain, Vuk Branko- 
vich, who, at the crisis of the struggle, rode over to the infidels 
with 12,000 panoplied horsemen. Whether true or not, that 
story struck deep into the hearts of the Serbs. During five 
centuries of slavery the exploits of Dushan and Milosh were 
handed down by minstrels (gosslari), who secretly assembled 
the peasants and sang to them of the great days when Serbs 
gave the law to Bulgar and Greek, and fell beneath the Mos- 
lem yoke only because of treachery within the fold. Thus 
a consciousness of superiority lingered on, inspiring the belief 
that, if ever they had a chance, they would beat back the in- 
fidel to Asia and renew the ancient glories of Uskub. A people 
that cherishes those historic memories can never be alto- 
gether enslaved. The fire of patriotism, though choked 
down, will smoulder on; and a spark may bring it to a flame. 

That spark, as we have seen, was blown eastwards from 
Italy and Croatia. The exploits of Napoleon and the fall 
of Venice and Austria sent a thrill through the Slavonic 
world; and the Serbs challenged the supremacy of the Turks. 
At that time the Ottoman Empire was rent asunder by 
revolts of local pashas and of that privileged military caste, 
the Janissaries. The Serb peasants therefore won many suc- 
cesses; and the invasion of Turkey by the Russians in 1809 
promised for a time to lead to the expulsion of the Turks 
from Europe. In 18 12 the Russians had to withdraw in 
order to meet Napoleon's Grand Army; but, as formerly in 
1 791, they had spread far and wide the hope that the great 
Slav brother would free his "little brothers," the Roumans, 
Bulgars, and Serbs. By the treaty of 181 2 Russia wrested 



lOO NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

from the Turks the boon of autonomy for the Roumans, 
together with certain privileges for the Serbs. These last 
were soon revoked by the ever faithless Turks, who sought 
to cow the Serbs by impaling or brutal floggings. They 
failed. An enterprising Serb peasant, Milosh Obrenovich, 
proclaimed a general rising on Palm Sunday, 1815, worsted 
the enemy and extorted the right to bear arms. 

In the sequel the Ottomans might, perhaps, have over- 
whelmed the Serbs but for the risings of the Greeks, the 
revolts of the Janissaries, and the Russian invasion of 1829. 
The rapid advance of the Russians as far as Adrianople 
spread dismay among the Turks; and Sultan Mahmud II 
made peace with Russia, conceding among other things 
further rights to the Serbs. Thus a second time Russia be- 
friended the Slavs of the Balkans, and they (the Bulgars 
included) acknowledged her as their champion. In 1842 
Serbia (now enlarged) refashioned her popular Assembly, so 
that what had been merely a mass meeting of warriors be- 
came an organized representative body. Thus the Serbs 
were the first of the lesser Slav peoples to develop constitu- 
tional rule, albeit of a very crude and primitive type. This 
fact is far more significant than the sanguinary strifes be- 
tween the rival Houses of Karageorge and Obrenovich. 
Those struggles, culminating in the murder of King Alexander 
in 1903, are reHcs of a barbarous past; but they have not 
very seriously retarded the progress of the people at large. 
That progress is what really matters; and the acts by which 
a community of peasants step by step won its freedom from 
the warlike Turks and then gradually attained to self-govern- 
ment bespeak not only tenacious bravery, but also a political 
capacity of no mean order. In the nineteenth century na- 
tionalism which is limited solely to military exploits counts 
for little. As Napoleon once remarked, the civilian is a 
wider man than a mere warrior, because "the method of 



THE AWAKENING OF THE SLAVS loi 

the soldier is to act despotically; that of the civilian is to 
submit to discussion, truth, and reason." Similarly, a people 
which excels in the affairs of peace must in the long run 
surpass one which, like the Turks, devotes itself almost ex- 
clusively to war. In fact, nothing is more remarkable than 
the manner in which the Christian peoples of the Balkans 
though often defeated and massacred, have slowly but 
surely outstripped their Ottoman conquerors and perse- 
cutors. It is because the latter have relied upon force, while 
their subjects have applied the new national enthusiasm to 
all sides of the widening life of to-day. The futility of rely- 
ing merely upon armed might nowhere appears more clearly 
than in the changed relations of the Turks and their victims. 
The fortunes of those subject peoples, however, depended 
largely upon their champion, Russia. In that Empire, es- 
pecially at the old capital, Moscow, pride of race has always 
been strong. If Petrograd was, as its founder claimed, the 
eye by which Russia looked out on Europe, Moscow was 
the eye of faith, which discerned in Muscovy the means of 
national uplifting. There are always two currents of thought 
in Russia, the cosmopolitan, strong at Petrograd, which has 
tended to rely on Germany and France; the other, all-powerful 
at Moscow, which circles about things Muscovite, and 
claims that they alone will save Russia. The former party 
tend to depreciate Slavonic customs and sometimes vent 
their despair in such an outburst as that of Turgenieff: 
"What have we Russians invented but the knout?" The 
others, strong in faith and contemptuous of foreign ways, 
retort: "Yes: whenever it rains at Paris, you put up your 
umbrellas at Petersburg." The men of faith point out that 
in 1812 the might of Napoleon collapsed before the patriotic 
endurance of Russian peasants; and in that time of trial the 
nation proved its capacity both to save itself and save 
Europe. Away, then, with servile imitation of the foreigner! 



I02 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

Away with the German customs aild notions imported by 
Peter the Great and Catharine! ^ 

Such was the creed of a group of students at the Univer- 
sity of Moscow. They sought "to found an independent 
national culture on the basis of popular conceptions and 
Byzantine orthodoxy, forsaken since the time of Peter the 
Great." ^ In the main they relied on the Mir and the com- 
munal customs connected with it; also on the Greek Church 
as the true exponent of Christian tradition. They forswore 
the use of French and German in favor of the hitherto 
despised vernacular. At first, i. e. early in the thirties, the 
movement had no political significance; but Nicholas I soon 
used it to further his reactionary policy; and the tendency 
of a narrow nationalism to play into the hands of a despot 
was illustrated in Russia more promptly and banef uUy than 
perhaps anywhere else. Thanks to the Slavophiles of Mos- 
cow, Nicholas was able to subject the teaching of philosophy 
to the clergy of the Greek Church and that of history to the 
supervision of the public censor. Foreign books and news- 
papers were as far as possible excluded; and Russia entered 
upon the path of political and religious reaction. * 

A similar degradation befell a somewhat cognate move- 
ment. Panslavism can boast a revolutionary origin. It 
was first proclaimed at Paris by a Russian, Bakunin, who 
is also the father of Nihilism. A Russian student, he sat 
at the feet of Hegel at Berlin, and finally settled in the 
French capital, where he associated with many Polish exiles. 
At a banquet, held in 1847 to commemorate the Polish rising 
of 1830, he spoke passionately in favor of a federative union 
of all Slavs. Such a scheme implied the grouping together, 
not only of the Russians and Poles, but of the Checs and 
Slovaks of Bohemia and Moravia, and of the South Slavs 
oppressed by Austria and Turkey. As a revolutionary pro- 
^ Russia before and after the War^ p. 138. 



THE AWAKENING OF THE SLAVS 103 

gramme this scheme of Bakunin surpassed all the political 
schemes of the nineteenth century. Its complete realization 
would involve the destruction, not only of Austria and 
Turkey, but also of the Empire of the Tsars; for, as was 
said by Herzen, one of the Russian revolutionaries: "When 
we win Constantinople, then the iron sceptre of Peter the 
Great must break; for it cannot be lengthened to reach to 
the Dardanelles." ^ The Russian anarchists, then, hoped by 
arousing a Slavonic enthusiasm among all branches of that 
widely scattered race to break up three great Empires and 
spread revolution far and wide. In its origin Panslavism 
was rather an anarchic than a merely national movement. 
In this respect it contrasts with the Pangerman movement, 
which has always been intensely national. ^ 

Panslavism, however, gradually shed its revolutionary 
slough and became almost a conservative force. The steps 
by which this came about are obscure; and we need merely 
note that in the critical years 1875-7 Panslavists and Slav- 
ophiles tended to merge. Both sections sought to force the 
Tsar, Alexander II, to draw the sword against Turkey; and, 
despite his clinging to peace, they prevailed. In the period 
of reaction which set in under Alexander III Panslavism and 
the Slavophile movement proper were the twin steeds yoked 
to the autocrat's car. Both proved to be equally amenable 
to the yoke; and the reactionary Ministers of Petrograd 
succeeded so skilfully in manipulating Panslavism that wags 
have wittily dubbed it "the romanticism of red tape." 
The phrase crystallizes the tendencies of the Slavs towards 
emotionalism in politics, which, in practice, inclines them 
towards submission to the powers that be in Church and 
State. 

Another weakness of the Slavs is their wide dispersion. 
The Germans and Magyars thrust a solid mass between the 
1 Ibid., p. 308. 



I04 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

North and South Slavs of the Austrian Empire; so that, even 
in the cataclysm of 1848-9, the two halves of that people 
failed to unite. For all their eager fraternizing in a great 
Slavonic Congress at Prague in the spring of 1848,^ the South 
Slavs soon ranged themselves on the side of the Hapsburgs 
and helped to re-establish that dynasty. It is curious that 
those years witnessed the rise both of the Panslavonic and 
Pangerman ideas, the former at Prague, the latter at the 
German Parliament assembled at Frankfurt; but nothing 
came of either of them. Democracy and nationality then 
hindered each other, and found no support from any powerful 
State. Their ignominious collapse subjected those formative 
ideas two decades later to the domination of Realpolitik; of 
Gortchakoff in Russia, of Bismarck in Prussia. 

Not that the call which in 1875 came to Russia from the 
Slavs of the Turkish Empire was devoid of romance; for, if 
ever cause was lofty and holy, it was that which the Tsar, 
Alexander II, championed in the ensuing years. But the 
Slav movement was finally to suffer from the bargaining and 
the statecraft which accompanied and closed those liberating 
efforts. Assuredly, the cries which came from Bosnians, 
Serbs, and Bulgars were such as no patriotic Russian could 
hear unmoved. Bulgaria had lagged far behind her neigh- 
bors in developing the national idea, a fact which we may 
explain partly by her semi-Slavonic origin. The Bulgars 
are akin to the Magyars and Turks. True, after their long 
stay in Russia, near the Volga, they were Slavized and finally 
became Christian. But their stolid and unemotional tem- 
perament still proclaims their affinity to the Turanian stock; 
so that persons who lay stress on mere questions of race and 

^ The Committee's manifesto contained these words: "After centuries 
of misery we have at last become aware of our unity, our responsibility 
for one another." But the proceedings at the Congress demonstrated 
the extreme difficulty of conmion action. 



THE AWAKENING OF THE SLAVS 105 

ignore the higher and more lasting influences making for 
nationality may perhaps find some slight excuse for the re- 
cent treachery of the Bulgars to the Slavonic cause. But let 
it ever be remembered that the Bulgars owe everything to 
the Slavs. Besides, of themselves they would never have 
shaken off the Turkish yoke. In 1834 Kinglake travelled 
from Belgrade through Sofia to Constantinople. In Serbia 
he recognized the people as Serbs. East of the Dragoman 
Pass, that is in Bulgaria, he deemed all the inhabitants 
Turks, except a substratum of Christina rayahs unworthy 
of his notice. It was reserved for the French professor of 
Slavonic literature, C3^rien Robert, to unearth the Bulgars, 
and he found them secretly cherishing their religion, customs, 
and language, all of them not very unlike those of the Serbs. 

Apart from a few local risings of Bulgar peasants, goaded 
to madness by Turkish tyranny, nothing of importance oc- 
curred in their history until 1870, when they gained the right 
to have their own religious community, that is, apart from 
the Patriarch of the Greek Church. The Porte was induced 
to take this step, partly by the demands of Russia, France, 
and Great Britain, who always favored Bulgarian claims; 
partly also because it hoped by this means to divide the Chris- 
tians and weaken them. Far from that, the formation of a 
national Church strengthened the Bulgarian movement at 
the expense both of Greeks and Serbs. To the new Church 
were allotted Bulgaria Proper, also the vilayets of Adrianople, 
Salonica, Kossovo, and Monastir. In these districts, which 
Serbs and Greeks also claimed, the Bulgars soon began a 
vigorous propaganda by means of churches and schools, 
which soon withdrew vast numbers from the Greek Church. 
Sir Charles Eliot believes that this act halved the numbers 
of those who previously were counted Greeks.^ The Bulgars 
also stole a march on the Serbs in the districts of Kossovo 
1 Sir C. Eliot, Turkey in Europe, pp. 259, 291. 



io6 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

and Monastir. A Serb gentleman once informed me that 
his people never suffered a worse blow than the allocation of 
Old Serbia to the Bulgarian Church. The consequence was 
the growth of an intense rivalry between Bulgar, Greek, and 
Serb, especially for supremacy in Macedonia. The present 
war is in large measure the outcome of the racial jealousies 
which the Porte kindled, or rather rekindled, by its firman 
of 1870. Bulgaria is making a mad bid for the conquest of 
the territory which the Porte gave to her ecclesiastically 
in 1870. It was not until late in the nineteenth century that 
the Serbs gained the right to open their schools in the vilayets 
of Monastir and Salonica: and not until 1900 did they acquire 
a national church. 

In this respect Serbia has been very unfortunate, while 
Bulgaria enjoyed exceptional good fortune. Ever since 
1805 the Serbs were struggling for their independence from 
the Turks. Yet in 1870 at one bound the Bulgars passed 
them by in the race for supremacy, which depends largely 
on religious organization. How much this meant was seen 
in the racial statistics of Macedonia; in which the priest and 
schoolmaster were able to make what they liked of that doubt- 
ful material. The report of a Russian victory, a lavish dis- 
tribution of Austrian gold, or fear of the incursion of a robber- 
band of Greeks sufficed to make the wretched peasantry of 
Macedonia turn over from one side to the other with unblush- 
ing effrontery. 

To revert to the events of 1875; the reopening of the East- 
ern Question certainly came from the Serbs of Bosnia and 
Herzegovina. Their revolt in the autumn of 1875 was caused 
by the exceptional cruelty of the Turkish tax-gatherers after 
a bad harvest. That rising has by some been ascribed to 
Austrian agitators. But when crops were seized wholesale, 
and the sanctities of home were foully outraged, what need 
is there to drag in the foreign agitator? The explanation 



THE AWAKENING OF THE SLAVS 107 

is not supported by the facts of the case, and it is, in general, 
a singularly superficial way of accounting for a widespread 
movement. 

Last of all the Slavonic peoples, the Bulgars began to stir, 
but in the partial way that might be expected from their 
canny and suspicious nature. An ambitious Bulgar youth, 
named Stambuloff, who had been educated in Russia but 
expelled thence as a revolutionary, came back to Bulgaria 
in 1875 and sought in mid-September to raise the peasants 
against Turkish tyranny. Of the thousands who promised 
to help him only thirty assembled at the rendezvous near 
Eskizagra. These courageous men fled to the Balkans. 
Thence Stambuloff and a very few escaped to Russia, where 
once again he sought to rouse his sluggish countrymen. 

He had grounds for hope. The men of Herzegovina and 
Bosnia held out on the mountains, despite the hardships of 
the winter of 1875-6. The efforts of the three Empires 
(Austria, Russia, and Germany) to induce the Sultan to 
grant effective reforms were thwarted by the British Cabinet. 
Lord Beaconsfield, unwarned by the utter failure of our 
Crimean War policy, refused to support the efforts of the three 
Empires to apply pacific coercion in order to extort from 
Turkey the needed reforms. The British Ministry went 
further. It sent our Mediterranean squadron to Besika Bay, 
near the entrance of the Dardanelles, a step which encouraged 
the Sublime Porte to expect the armed succor of Britain in 
case of war with Russia. These events increased the excite- 
ment both of Moslems and Christians in the Peninsula. 
Serbia could scarcely keep her sword in its scabbard; and the 
Bulgars hoped for armed aid from Russia. A Bulgar school- 
master found out a curious anagram. The Bulgarian letters 
which make up the words ''Turkey will fall," when put in the 
form of an addition sum (letters serve as figures in the Cyrillic 
alphabet) amount to the total 1876. 



io8 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

The news whetted the eagerness of the peasants. The 
Bulgarian noveHst, Vazoff, in his romance, Under the Yoke, 
has described the secret preparations for the revolt. The 
women worked hard to bake quantities of biscuit for the men 
who were to take to the hills at the end of April, 1876. The 
men made guns, pikes, knives; while the more ambitious of 
them, who had heard tell of what the Carlists did long before 
in Spain, cut down their finest cherry trees, hollowed them 
out, hooped them with iron clamps, and hoped for great 
things from these curios mounted on the hills. Imagine the 
sequel on the first of May, when the Turkish Bashi-bazouks 
marched in. No deafening roar, no devastating volleys of 
grape shot on the Moslems; only a dull puff, a sound of rent 
wood, and the gunners themselves laid low. That pathetic 
incident was typical of the whole rising. With the narrow 
view of things, which is characteristic of the Bulgars, some 
villages waited for the others to begin; and most never began 
at all. On the few bolder spirits the Turks burst like a whirl- 
wind; and then the work of murder and outrage began. At 
Batak the Moslems, after accepting the surrender of the 
place, drove the men into the great church and set it on fire. 
Out of seven thousand inhabitants five thousand were done 
to death. 

But the victims did not die wholly in vain. When these 
horrors became known in England they aroused a storm 
of indignation against Turkish misrule. Mr. Gladstone 
voiced that indignation in tones which rang through the 
world. Even to-day, or certainly up to their last mad plunge, 
the Bulgars reverenced his memory and kept his portrait in 
their cottages beside that of "the Tsar Liberator." 

For Alexander II now Hstened to the fervid demands of 
his people for armed intervention. Gallant little Serbia had 
drawn the sword against the Turks; and the sight of the 
Serbs struggling against great odds stirred Slav opinion to its 



THE AWAKENING OF THE SLAVS 109 

depths. As before, Slav sentiment centred at Moscow, while 
official circles at Petrograd and the Tsar himself, suspect- 
ing that crusading fervor concealed revolutionary designs, 
sought to turn the people from their purpose. In this they 
failed. Finally, after curbing Slavophile sentiment for a year, 
the Tsar perceived that further delay would unite the nat- 
urally conservative Slavophiles with the Nihihsts; and when 
the Sublime Porte, still trusting to British succor, refused all 
offers of compromise, he declared war on Turkey. The 
ensuing struggle was fertile in surprises. Even with the help 
of Roumania, Russia barely overcame the Turks at Plevna, 
and then had to submit her first terms of peace, those of San 
Stefano, to the arbitrament of Europe. Owing to the opposi- 
tion of England and Austria, a far less drastic settlement of 
the racial questions of the Balkans was arrived at in the 
Treaty of Berlin (July, 1878). That treaty cut down the 
new Bulgarian State, from the San Stefano limits, which 
would have brought it near to Salonica, and penned Bul- 
garia Proper up in the province north of the Balkans. The 
Bulgars there were divided from their brethren south of that 
chain so as to weaken that people, whom British and Austrian 
statesmen hastily assumed to be the puppets of Russia. The 
gratitude of the Bulgars to Russia, however, vanished when 
the new Tsar, Alexander III, proceeded to treat them as 
puppets. His harsh overbearing ways alienated them; and 
on their declaring for the union of the two Bulgarias in 1885, 
it was England, under Lord Salisbury, which favored the 
union, while the Tsar, chiefly from hatred of the Bulgarian 
prince, Alexander, opposed that most natural and salutary 
step. The statesmanlike policy of Lord Salisbury had been 
prompted largely by our ambassador. Sir William White, a 
warm friend of the Christians of the Balkans; and thus the 
evil effects of Beaconsfield's pro-Turkish and anti-national 
policy were reversed. 



no NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

We must postpone to a later lecture a consideration of 
Balkan politics in the sequel. I have sought to bring before 
you a succession of scenes in which the Slavonic peoples 
struggled for seM-expression and for the most part utterly- 
failed. During many years Panslavism was a name that 
aroused terror in the clubs and salons of London. The 
reality never alarmed those who observed the centrifugal 
tendencies always potent among the Slavs. Hitherto Pan- 
slavism has been a political Tower of Babel. 



LECTURE VII 

THE GERMAN THEORY OF THE STATE 

"The aim of the State is not dominion or the restraining of men 
by and the subjecting of them to a foreign yoke. On the contrary, 
its aim is to deHver each man from fear so that he may be able to 
Hve with the utmost possible security. . . . The aim of the State 
is Hberty." — Spinoza, Theological Politics, ch. 20. 

At the beginning of this lecture I wish to make it dear 
that my aim is, not to discourse upon any one theory of 
the State, but rather to show how the notions about the 
State, now prevalent in Prussia and Germany, developed 
there. I will also not waste time by seeking to frame an 
elaborate definition of the term *' State." The word itself 
means that which is fixed or established, that is, in regard 
to law and government. Setting aside minor differences, 
there are three chief conceptions regarding the State. The 
first regards it as depending on the will of the monarch 
(e. g. VEtat c^est moi, of Louis XIV) ; or, secondly, of a priv- 
ileged set of persons; or, thirdly, of the mass of the people. 
The organism which gives effect to one or other of those 
wills is the State. Notions respecting it are always changing; 
and amidst the present cataclysm he would be a bold man 
who would ascribe definiteness and fixity to the conception 
of the State.^ But the desire for something approaching to 
definiteness, if not fixity, is inherent in the human mind, 
witness the declaration of poor, bewildered Louis XVI not 

1 1 accept the description given by Mr. C. Delisle Bums [The Morality 
of Nations, p. 28] as "the sovereign organization for the attainment of 
common political good." 

Ill 



112 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

long before the French Revolution. Conscious that le regime 
du bon plaisir (i. e. of the King's will) was doomed, he de- 
clared that France desired une maniere fixe d'etre gouvernee. 
That admission heralded the dawn of a democratic order on 
the Continent. Thenceforth the t3^ical State was not to be 
the expression of one man's will, but of "the general will," 
which Rousseau affirmed to be the source of all law and 
administration. 

But even when we limit ourselves to the modern State 
based on representative institutions, we find a great variety 
of conceptions regarding its functions. The most important 
of these differences arise respecting the claims which the 
State may make on the liberty and services of the individual 
citizen. Here at once we plunge into the region of contro- 
versies that are certain to become more and more acute. 
In this connection it is well to remember that the democratic 
States of the Ancient World, e. g. that of Athens, required 
implicit and almost unlimited obedience from their citizens. 
These were bound in many ways which we should deem 
abhorrent to true liberty. Transport a Londoner to the 
Sparta of Lycurgus, and he would protest vigorously that 
he was a mere bondman, not much better off than the actual 
slaves. Again, the fact that a Roman citizen could for 
heinous crimes be degraded to the position of a slave illus- 
trates the radical difference between the authority of the 
State over the individual in the Ancient and Modern World. 
The power of the Greek or Roman State was far greater than 
we should allow; yet that power was accepted as in the nat- 
ural order of things by citizens who considered themselves 
entirely free. 

When, therefore, we approach the subject of the authority 
of the modern State over its citizens, we must remember 
that all well-educated men were familiar with a condition 
of society in which a democratic State could demand nearly 



GERMAN THEORY OF THE STATE 113 

everything from its subjects. Lord Acton well describes the 
State in ancient times as being "both Church and State" in 
one.^ It was even more. It was Church and State and an 
exacting employer all in one. 

Lord Acton's simile is even more applicable to the absolute 
monarchies of Western Europe; for their authority was based 
on a theocratic creed as well as on military force. Henry 
VIII, Philip IV, and Louis XIV claimed to exercise an au- 
thority conferred by divine power and sacred unction. This 
was the theory adopted by the Hohenzollerns in the year 
1 70 1. The claim in their case was singular; for everyone who 
looked on at the gaudy ceremony of coronation of the first 
Prussian King at Konigsberg was aware that the royal title 
was gained by hard bargaining with the Hapsburg Court at 
Vienna. Nevertheless, Frederick I of Prussia decided that he 
would be a king by the grace of God, and he did his utmost 
to get himself taken seriously in that character. He crowned 
himself, as all his successors have done, excepting the greatest 
of them. Frederick the Great deemed that ceremony a 
farce, besides wasting money better spent on troops or road- 
making. 

By this resolve he struck the key-note of Prussian policy. 
Nothing for show, everything for efficiency. Rigorous 
efficiency in all departments of government, such was the 
aim of Frederick II. Nothing was too small to escape his 
ken. In time of peace he visited once a year every part of 
his kingdom. He decided what marshes should be drained, 
or what rivers embanked for the prevention of floods. It 
was his fostering care that improved the woollen trade, 
founded new villages, and sought to construct a navy and 
plant colonies overseas. He was his own commander-in- 
chief, foreign minister, chief engineer, and chief develop- 
ment commissioner. Woe betide the official who neglected 
^ Acton, History of Freedom and other Essays, p. 16. 



114 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

his work! Frederick's eye was sure to detect the fault and 
punish it severely. During one of his journeys he happened 
to find out that a courier was kept waiting owing to the 
somnolence of a postmaster. The King rushed upstairs into 
the offender's bedroom, dragged him from bed, and admin- 
istered a severe caning under the most favorable conditions. 

Frederick II was the Prussian State. To his nephew he 
described his feelings early in the reign as he surveyed the 
splendid troops and full coffers bequeathed by his fathers. 
He spent some of the money and increased the troops. Then 
he looked around him and saw four provinces that he might 
seize. He chose Silesia. "Therefore" (he wrote to his suc- 
cessor), *'have money, give an air of superiority to your 
troops. Wait for opportunities, and you will be certain, not 
merely to preserve, but to increase your dominions. . . . 
All depends on circumstances and on the courage of him who 
takes." Such are the fundamental maxims of Prussian state- 
craft: "Be strong, be ready, then make your coupy 

But if Frederick schemed and tricked, it was for Prussia; 
and it was for Prussia that he was ready to bleed and die. 
His letter, of October, 1760, written in the midst of a seem- 
ingly hopeless campaign, strikes a high note: "I regard 
death from the Stoic point of view. Never shall I see the 
moment that forces me to make a disadvantageous peace. 
No persuasion, no eloquence, shall ever induce me to sign 
my dishonor. . . . Finish this campaign I certainly will, re- 
solved to dare all, and to make the most desperate attempts, 
either to succeed or to find a glorious end." — That is the 
spirit which prevails over less determined foes, whose chatter 
about peace proclaims their half-heartedness, or at least 
their lack of the supreme resolve of the hero. It is this 
rigorous spirit, rigorous towards self as well as towards 
others, which has made Prussia so formidable. Rightly 
to understand the Prussian idea of the State, you must 



GERMAN THEORY OF THE STATE 115 

first understand historically the Hohenzollern spirit; for it 
is that spirit which has made the State. The State is merely 
the machine; that spirit is the inner fire which imparts to 
the machine its terrible force; and that spirit is still in its 
essence the relentless but also self-sacrificing energy of Fred- 
erick the Great. 

The extent to which the personality of her rulers affected 
the administration of Prussia is obvious from a glance at 
her fortunes. Frederick the Great raised her to the rank 
of a Great Power. But, as Mirabeau pointed out in 1786, 
that position was very precarious. Under the rule of his 
vicious, extravagant, and vacillating nephew, Frederick 
William II, Prussia sank quickly to the second rank. The 
weakness and pedantry of his son, Federick William III, 
completed her misfortunes. But a change came over the 
scene in the years 1807-13. The people, formerly passive 
in the hands of their rulers, became keenly interested in the 
revival of their State. Schiller and Fichte had awakened 
a truly national German feeling; and the reforms of the 
Prussian statesmen. Stein, Scharnhorst, and Hardenberg, 
in those years made Berlin the one possible centre of poUtical 
union for all Germans. The Prussian people were identified 
with the Prussian State, as was the case nowhere else in 
Germany; and Germans elsewhere looked to Prussia to save 
them from Napoleon. It was the energy of thinkers and 
men of action at Berlin that expelled the French and made 
Prussia the leader of Germany. Depressed by the weaknesses 
of Frederick William IV, she was raised to unexampled 
glory by William I and his paladins; and in 187 1 she unified 
Germany. 

Now, Prussia was the same State, yet that State varied 
enormously according to the human element. Therefore 
it is fallacious to suppose that there is some magic in the 
Prussian State, or in the German Empire founded on it. 



ii6 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

To theorize about the Prussian State as though it were 
everything in the developemnt of Prussia and Germany 
is absurd. The rulers and statesmen are more important 
than the State. Indeed, from the time of the Great Elector 
down to Wilhelm II it is they who have made or unmade 
the State. 

Nevertheless, the development of ideas about the Prus- 
sian State deserves careful study. Though that polity made 
unheard of demands on the citizens, yet it looked after their 
interests with almost grandfatherly care. Bismarck, on in- 
troducing the first measures that were to be known as State 
SociaHsm, declared that they formed no new departure; 
for the House of HohenzoUern had always governed with 
a view to the welfare of the poor. This was certainly true 
of its best members. For instance, Frederick the Great, 
in 1766, refused to countenance a proposal of one of his 
oflScials to tax fat cattle when imported. "A crown a head 
on the import of fat cattle? Tax on butcher's meat? (he 
exclaimed). No. That would fall on the poorer classes. 
To that I must say no. I am, by office, procurator of the 
poor (avocat du pauvre)y The HohenzoUerns have generally 
sought to consult the welfare of their poorer subjects; and 
this was the reason why German provinces, like Silesia, 
which were annexed to the Prussian monarchy, soon became 
Prussian. That kingdom was not liked — it never has been 
— but its vigorous rule promoted prosperity and pushed the 
people on. By these qualities many able Germans were at- 
tracted to Berlin. Of the men who helped to raise up Prussia 
after the terrible overthrow of 1806-7, the most illustrious 
were non-Prussians. Stein was a Franconian, Hardenberg 
and Scharnhorst were Hanoverians, Queen Louisa and Blii- 
cher were Mecklenburgers, Fichte and Gneisenau were 
Saxons, etc.^ Scarcely a single able leader was a Prussian. 
1 Seeley, Stein, II, 403. 



GERMAN THEORY OF THE STATE 117 

Yet the best brains in Germany gravitated to Berlin. What 
was the attractive force? Not mere ambition; but rather 
the conviction that there alone worked an efl&cient machine. 

These considerations explain why practically all German 
theories as to the State originated in Prussia. Omitting the 
French and freedom-loving theories of WiUiam von Hum- 
boldt, the first is that of Kant, the idealist of Konigsberg. 
Sir John Seeley said that Kant's severe gospel of duty was 
a natural outcome of the age and the poUty of Frederick 
the Great. It may even be affirmed that Kant's teaching 
about the State is an idealization of all that was best in the 
actions of the great King. Kant seeks to repress the selfish- 
ness of individuals, and to compel them to work for the 
general weal. They must do so (he claims) in the interest 
of order; for order is essentially the aim of the State; and 
order can be assured only by submission of individual whims 
to the will of the community. True; for the purpose of se- 
curing order, the State must be endowed with force; but 
it does not exist for the sake of developing force. (There 
Kant is far ahead of the latest school of German thinkers.) 
The raison d'etre of the State is order.^ 

On the outbreak of the French Revolution, liberty, prog- 
ress, and peace become the dominant aims of Kant. They 
are set forth in his essay. Perpetual Peace (1795), which re- 
mains a landmark of the generous cosmopolitanism that was 
soon to be submerged by the Napoleonic deluge. We shall 
return to Kant's Essay in Lecture X. 

The next of Germany's thinkers was a Saxon by birth. 
Fichte (i 762-1814) spent most of his early life in Saxony, 
Switzerland, and at Jena; but a charge of infidehty drove 
him from his professorship at that University; and in his 
thirty-seventh year he settled at Berlin, where he found 
more toleration and freedom of speech than in the smaller 
centres. In 1800 he published an Essay, The Exclusive 



Ii8 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

Commercial State, in which he advocated rigorous protection 
and an ahnost socialistic ordering of all activities. The 
work glorified the rigorous tendencies of Prussian politics; 
and may be termed a rather viewy precursor of the State 
Socialism of Lassalle and Bismarck. 

Far fuller and more philosophical were Fichte^s lectures on 
*'The Characteristics of the Present Age" (1804) — at which 
we glanced in Lecture III. In them he eulogized Prussia. 
In the tenth lecture he rejected a theory of the State, which 
describes it as merely a juridical institution, i. e. concerned 
with the making and administering of law. Such a concep- 
tion might do for Saxony or Wurtemberg; but it appeared 
to him inadequate amidst the varied activities of Prussia. 
He put forward one which certainly did not err on that side. 
He called the absolute (i. e. complete or perfect) State "an 
artistic institution, intended to direct all individual powers 
towards the life of the race and to transfuse them therein." 
In previous lectures he had explained his sense of the impor- 
tance of the universal life, declaring that the aim of mankind 
was, or should be, " to order all their relations with freedom 
according to reason." Human life, then, ought to be con- 
cerned with reasonable activities, which must enjoy a reason- 
able amount of freedom. As for the State, it would be the 
means of furthering the higher aims of mankind. It would 
restrain the selfishness of individuals by directing their 
energies towards the welfare of the whole of Society. Fichte's 
aim, at this time, was cosmopolitan, not Prussian. 

But his methods were autocratic. As the collective ac- 
tivities of mankind do not in the least degree attract the 
numerous individuals to whom the triumph of reason is 
naught and the pursuit of their own unreason is everything, 
he maintains that they must be compelled to enter into the 
collective life. Seeing that they "feel no desire, but, on the 
contrary, a reluctance, to offer up their individual life for 



GERMAN THEORY OF THE STATE 119 

the race," there must be some power which will compel 
them, if need be, to die for the community. That power is 
the State. 

Fichte's words describing the State as an artistic institu- 
tion are somewhat odd, seeing that it directs all individual 
powers towards the life of the race. But he explains that 
by "artistic" he means that which raises men above their 
natural level so as to fulfil the destinies of the race.^ The 
State carries out this purpose and compels all citizens, with- 
out a single exception, to dedicate themselves to this duty. 
Even the rulers are subject to this obligation. It is their 
directing power and the directed energies of the governed, 
which together make up the State. He proceeds to make 
another claim: "All individual power which is known and 
accessible to the State is necessary to it for the furtherance 
of its purpose: its purpose is Kultur (civilization); and in 
order to maintain the position to which a State has already 
attained, and to advance still further, it requires at all times 
the exertion of every available power; for, only through the 
united power of all, has it attained this position. Should 
it not take the Whole into account, it must needs recede, 
instead of advancing, and lose its position in the ranks of 
civilization." 

These statements call for some explanation. Fichte spoke 
at a time when the Government of Prussia was in the weak 
and nerveless hands of Frederick William III; when, also, 
Germany was sinking under the control of Napoleon and 
accepted his direction in the spoliation of the Ecclesiastical 
States and knightly domains. In view of that disgraceful 
scramble Fichte desired to strengthen Prussia; he sought 
also to remind her King and nobles that the State had de- 
clined in authority and prestige since the days of Frederick 

ij think that the phrase "a civilizing institution" comes nearer to 
Fichte's real thought. 



I20 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

the Great. Then the Prussian State was the embodiment 
of power. In 1804 it was not; and unless it recurred to the 
forceful ideals of the earlier generation Prussia must degen- 
erate. Fichte therefore sought to press every faculty of the 
Prussian people into the public service; and he clinched his 
demand by this declaration: "In a perfect State no just 
individual purpose can exist, which is not included in the 
purposes of the community, and for the attainment of which 
the community does not provide." Or, to translate it into 
modern parlance: "Every activity of life belongs to the 
State; and the perfect community will have a place for 
every man and will see that he fills that place to the utmost 
of his power." 

Obviously, Fichte was heading towards a drastic State 
Socialism. He did not use the term "Socialism," which, 
indeed, does not first appear until some thirty-two years 
later. Still less did he see his Spartan ideals realized. But 
his system would have imposed on Prussia a polity as ab- 
solute as that of the Pharaohs, a regime in which individual 
liberty would vanish and all the activities of life would be 
regulated as they are in an ants' nest. "The general will" 
of Rousseau, having passed through the mill of German 
philosophical method, came out as the Prussian State, thus 
outlined by Fichte. 

For the attainment of its complete and characteristic 
growth one more element was necessary — that of Nationality. 
In 1804-5 Fichte had not yet hit upon that formative idea. 
Perhaps he derived it from Schiller's Wilhelm Tell, which 
seems to have influenced Fichte's Addresses to the German 
Nation. Or else, as I ventured to suggest, the fall of the 
Prussian State after Jena (1806) revealed to him the German 
nation. In the earlier lectures on the State he never men- 
tions the nation. He conceives the Christian European 
peoples as being very much alike and concerned with the 



GERMAN THEORY OF THE STATE 121 

same purposes. It is the States that are in perpetual conflict, 
some rising, some faUing, according to the degrees of energy 
and abiHty which they display; and their true aim is to 
further the progress of the race as a whole. To take a con- 
crete instance, Prussia and Austria are in constant com- 
petition, sometimes in actual conflict. Their rivalry calls 
forth the powers of their rulers and subjects. Prussia wins 
because she is the better organized; and her triumph, being 
a survival of the fittest, furthers the progress of the human 
race. Fichte was not then thinking of the German race; 
for indeed it was in so divided and discordant a condition 
that you could not discern it as a political unit. 

By the winter of 1807-8 the way was cleared, and Fichte's 
Addresses to the German Nation called to action, not hide- 
bound States, but a half-strangled people. As always hap- 
pens in time of crisis, he sought to revive their courage by 
recalling the mighty deeds that Germans had accomplished 
both in war and in the peaceful arts — their inventions, com- 
mercial development, and learning. He claimed the Refor- 
mation as a truly German assertion of liberty of thought; 
and he vaunted the superiority of the pure Germans over 
the Franks and other Teutons that had unlearnt their mother- 
tongue. The nation was now the dominant thought. It 
eclipsed the idea of the State, as appeared in this passage 
(Lecture VIII): "Nation and Fatherland in this sense as 
bearers of and security for earthly immortality ... far 
transcend the State in the usual sense of the term. . . . 
The State only aims at security of rights, internal peace. 
All that is only the means, the condition, the preparation, 
for that which patriotism essentially aims at, the blossom- 
ing of the eternal and divine in the world." He then asserted 
that patriotism must direct the State, individual liberty 
being restricted within as narrow limits as possible. In his 
earlier notions the State was supreme in order by competi- 



122 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

tion with other States to advance the welfare of the human 
race as a whole. In 1807-8 he reduced the State merely 
to a piece of mechanism, driven onwards by the nation, 
with patriotism as the directing agency. The union of his 
earlier Pharaoh-like theory with his later claim of the su- 
premacy of the nation prepared the way for the later theory 
of the German State, conterminous with the German na- 
tion, and both impeUing, and impelled by, that nation. 

His teaching bore fruit in many directions. As the State 
or the nation requires all the activities of its citizens, it 
follows that all distinctions of privilege must vanish; for the 
unprivileged (e. g. the serfs) cannot develop their full powers. 
The serfs therefore become freeholders; national education 
begins, so does municipal government, in which men are 
compelled to take up their duties. All these changes aim 
at the increase of power and efficiency. For this same pur- 
pose compulsion is laid upon them to defend their country. 
That duty had been required of all Frenchmen of military 
age by the French Republic in 1793, and more systematically 
in 1798. After the Peace of Tilsit (1807), Prussia extended 
the principle of compulsory service to all her sons. Scharn- 
horst and Gneisenau, the chief designers of the new Prus- 
sian army, demanded in the preamble to their reforms that 
the army must be *'the union of all the moral and physical 
energies of the nation." The phrase recalls the words of 
Fichte; and it well summarizes the aims of the Prussian 
patriots of that time. The realization of their ideal in the 
glorious efforts of the War of Liberation reveals the poten- 
tialities of the Prussian State. Dowered with the toughness 
of the Frederician regime, it is strengthened and enriched 
by the doctrines of civic seK-sacrifice proclaimed by Kant 
and Fichte. 

Long after the faE of Napoleon, the memory of the events 
of 1813-5 inspired the thinkers of Prussia and Germany. 



GERMAN THEORY OF THE STATE 123 

The energy and order prevalent at Berlin attracted thither 
many thinkers who began life in the small States. That 
had happened to Fichte, and in 18 18 it happened to Hegel, 
his successor in the chair of philosophy in that University. 
Earlier in his career Hegel (1770-183 1) had been an en- 
thusiastic admirer of Napoleon and viewed the overthrow 
of Prussia with supreme indifference; for he saw in the French 
people and their Emperor the outcrop of the world-spirit. 
But in his Berlin period he became Prussian. In his lectures 
delivered there in 1820 he delivered his theory of the State 
in regard to law. His conclusion was that the State was in 
the moral order what Nature was in the physical order. 
As the State sustained and regulated everything, it formed 
the chief necessity of life for civilized men, and became, in 
effect, the realized ethical ideal or ethical spirit. 

By these claims Hegel raised the State to a supernatural 
level. There it existed as something perfect, absolute, and 
superhuman, yet dominating the fortunes of mankind. 
Apparently, the Hegelian State could not develop or change; 
for development impHes advance from a less perfect condi- 
tion to one that is more perfect. Hegel also made no allow- 
ance for its permeation by the ideals of other States.^ His 
ideal creation remains alone, like some Zeppelin tethered a 
mile or so above Berlin, and dominating earth, air, and 
heaven itseff. Indeed, this simile is too weak to express the 
absolute self-sufficiency of the Hegelian State. Its creator 
scoffed at all inquiries as to its origin; for it had always ex- 
isted while the nation existed. All that he will say on this 
head is that the State is the outcome of the deep-seated 
principle of order. ^ This it is which determines the exercise 
of what Rousseau termed "the general will." 

Here at last we come to firm ground; but we remember 

1 See D. Bums, op. cit., pp. 45, 53. 

* Hegel, Philosophy of Lights transl. by S. W. Dyde, pp. 240-65. 



124 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

that forty years earlier Kant had affirmed the raison d^ttre 
of the State to be the craving for order. In this respect, then, 
the Hegehan notion hnks itself on to the doctrines of Rous- 
seau and Kant; but the outcome is a terrifying and steriliz- 
ing creation, whose chief practical duty is to protect "the 
life, property, and free-will (!) of every person, simply in 
so far as he does not injure the life, property, and free-will 
of any other." But, he proceeds, the State is far more than 
a magnified police officer. The perfect State is a spiritual 
and all-pervading entity. It is not something separate from 
each of its subjects. It is not distinct from you, from me. 
We form part of it; and in this consciousness lies our political 
freedom. Here we must remember that Hegel admits that 
a bad State is finite and worldly. But wherein the perfect 
State consists and wherein a State is bad is not clearly de- 
fined. 

It may seem impertinent in a mere historian to criticize 
Hegel; but I cannot avoid the suspicion that, in identifying 
the subjects with a perfect State, he is confusing the State 
with the nation. My insular imagination fails to conceive 
so complete an identification of the citizen with the most 
perfect State as to become merged into it. That merging 
is possible in the case of the nation; and I believe that it 
can be affirmed of every true patriot at a great crisis. Cer- 
tainly every Briton who now dies for his country makes that 
supreme surrender on behalf of the nation, or for His Maj- 
esty as typifying the nation. Professor Edward Meyer in 
a recent work claims that it is the great defect of our public 
life that we do not think about the State. He says: "The 
Briton never speaks of his State — a State does not exist for 
him. He either speaks of the Empire or he speaks of the 
Government, meaning the Government which then handles 
the rudder of State. A State high above the clash of parties 
does not exist for the Briton as it exists for the German": 



GERMAN THEORY OF THE STATE 125 

and to this he attributes our political helplessness in this 
war. Events, of course, will decide that point; ^ and I ques- 
tion whether the average German is filled with much enthusi- 
asm for the German State. I believe that he fights and dies 
for das Vaterland, which is a far more human and inspiring 
conception than that of the State. The idea of the State, 
I believe, appeals chiefly to the intellectuals; for, ever since 
Hegel's day, it has supplied them with a moHv for theory- 
weaving. 

However, the question whether a soldier fights and dies 
for his nation or his State is academic trifling; and (to return 
to Hegel) I believe that he ascribed to the State much that 
Fichte had ascribed to the nation. It seems to me that on 
this topic Fichte's view was sounder. The nation it was 
which fired France with hope and enthusiasm. The Ger- 
mans defiantly retorted with their national idea in 18 13; 
and though the idea of the German nation did not in that 
age find visible expression in a national State, yet there was 
the chance that it would one day embody itself. To idealize 
the State in 1830 was surely doubtful psychology and false 
as history. The criticism of some of Hegel's contemporaries 
crystalhzed in the joke that he mistook the Kingdom of 
Prussia for the Kingdom of Heaven.^ / 

Hegel even afiSrms that the State is the nation's spirit. 
That again is a question of words; and I cannot see that 
such a description of the State advances our knowledge of 
it. We worldly minded students of history want to know, 
not what the State is, but how it works; how it reconciles the 
often divergent claims of general order and the liberty of the 
individual. On these topics Hegel is as silent as Rousseau. 

^ See the suggestive remarks of Rev. J. Oman, The War and its Issues, 
ch. Ill [Camb. Univ. Press, 1915], as to the difference of British and 
German ideas of the State. 

2 G. P. Gooch, in Contemporary Review, June, 1915. 



126 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

In fact, Hegel, like Rousseau, seems to believe that in that 
ideal entity, the absolute State, there will be no opposition. 
We reply that that is unthinkable among a free community; 
and our suspicions of the Berlin professor are not lessened 
by his assertion that to offer the people a constitution is a 
mere whim, seeing that a constitution must grow from the 
consciousness of the people. *'True!" we Enghsh reply; 
"that is the best method, the EngHsh method; but is that a 
sufficient reason for refusing the beginnings of a free govern- 
ment to a less fortunate people? " There is, of course, much 
truth in Hegel's further statement, that every nation has 
the constitution that suits it and belongs to it; but this 
assertion again is liable to abuse, if it implies that no arbi- 
trary Government is ever to be overthrown, because the 
people do not deserve a better.^ In practice, Hegel's theoriz- 
ing about the State came to be a defence of paternal and 
almost despotic Government. "You have a nearly perfect 
State" (said he); "be content with it; identify yourself 
with it; you need not wish for anything better." Some of 
his friends reproached him with deserting his earlier progres- 
sive views; and the charge seems proven. 
^ In his next political work. The Philosophy of History (1830), 
[Hegel implicitly defended the Prussian system, which ex- 
) eluded the populace from the political life of the State: he 
also decried the results of the French Revolution; and, as for 
the English Reform Bill, he declared that it would destroy 
what slight measure of governing capacity still survived in 
these islands. Moreover (said he), the typical Englishman 
was too insular, too whimsical, to understand real liberty, 
and always looked at it from the point of view of his own 
home. As for Prussia, despite her exclusion of the citizens 
from political affairs, she was on the right track; for she 
embodied the principle of reason. She was Protestant, and 
1 Dyde, op. ciL, pp. 274-82. 



GERMAN THEORY OF THE STATE 127 

she admitted capable men to all posts. ^ What more could 
they want? 

Notwithstanding this discouraging conclusion, the in- 
fluence exerted by Hegel was very great. Discredited though 
he was by the later Liberalism (which found its exponent in 
Bluntschli ^), his State^absolutism lived on and helped to 
reinforce the masterful notions of the Bismarck-Treitschke 
period. Another Hegelian theory tending in the same direc- 
tion was that of the World-Spirit visiting and vivifying the 
great peoples in turn, and, in the fullness of time, the German 
people. But we must postpone to Lecture X an examination 
of that theory. 

So far we have been considering the German ideahsts. 
It has been stated that their political teaching was sound, 
and that the poison which has crept in was due solely to 
materiaUsm of thought and to its poUtical resultant, Real- 
politik} But, as I have tried to show, danger lurked in the 
teachings of Fichte and Hegel. In their Berlin periods they 
denied individual liberty and exalted the State to a dangerous 
pre-eminence, while Hegel's later teachings fostered the 
growth of Prussian Chauvinism. The following years wit- 
nessed the pubhcation of Clausewitz's work On War, memora- 
ble for its declaration that States were always in a condition of 
struggle, of which war was only an intenser form. Then, too, 
appeared that exciting poem, " Deutschlafid, Deutschland iiber 
dies.'' 

The popular outbreaks of 1848-9 in Germany concern 
us here only because the populace ever)^here affirmed the 

1 Hegel [op. cit., p. 437] recognizes a South German nationality, be- 
cause that people was too mixed to accept Protestantism. 

2 See J. K. Bluntschli, The Theory of the State [Eng. edit. (2nd), Oxford, 
1892]; especially Bk. II for suggestive remarks on the State and Nation- 
ality. 

' Prof. J. H. Muirhead, German Philosophy in Relation to the War, 
Lects. I, n. 



128 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

supremacy of the whole nation; and when Frederick William 
IV for a time surrendered to his "dear BerUners" and de- 
clared that thenceforth Prussia would merge herseK in Ger- 
many, the triumph of the nation over the Prussian State 
seemed assured. Owing to the inexperience and reckless 
enthusiasms of the first German Parliament, which met at 
Frankfurt in 1848, all went awry. The old political mechan- 
ism was set up again; and, when Germany achieved her 
union in 1870-1, it was through the House of HohenzoUem 
and the Prussian State. Consequently, the failures of Ger- 
man Liberalism in 1848-9 have profoundly affected the trend 
of political thought. IdeaUsm, democracy, and voluntary 
methods being discredited, the tendency was towards the 
precepts and practice of Frederick the Great. In short, the 
age became ripe for Bismarck's gospel of "blood and iron," 
the way for which was further facihtated by prosperity, and 
the development of a materialistic philosophy.^ Bismarck 
often gibed at the professors and barristers of 1848; but it was 
their viewiness which prepared the way for his statecraft. 
The excesses of democrats have always been the best help of 
reactionaries. 

The first sign of the new spirit was an essay by Rouchau 
on Realpolitik. PubHshed in 1853, when the reaction was 
in full swing, it trumpeted forth the new political mate- 
riaHsm. "The State is Power" — such is its thesis. It at- 
tracted a far more important man than Rochau, Heinrich 
von Treitschke, who afterwards developed that theory to 
its logical conclusion. Treitschke (1834-96) came of a Slav 
family and was endowed with Slavonic intensity and ve- 
hemence, which he vented against that race with all the 
acerbity of a renegade. His father was a Saxon oflScer of 
proved loyalty and steadfastness; but the youth soon dis- 
played far other tendencies. For his first recorded speech, 
1 See Professor Muirhead, op. cit., Lect. III. 



GERMAN THEORY OF THE STATE 129 

delivered at a prize-giving, he chose as his subject praise 
of Prussia's championship of German unity; and that incident 
is typical as illustrating his natural bent towards Prussianism. 
As a student, he read with ardor the Politics of Aristotle and 
the Prince of Machiavelli, dangerous reading for a youth of 
his ardent temperament. The study of Fichte and Hegel 
fortified his conviction of the need for the supremacy of the 
State; and in 1861 (the year of the consummation of Italian 
unity) he set forth the ideal of "the nationally exclusive 
State," i. e. a State composed of one people. "For (said he) 
where the living and indubitable consciousness of unity per- 
vades all the members of the State, there and there only is the 
State what its nature requires that it should be, a nation 
possessing organic unity." He prophesied that the great 
peoples would everywhere form national States — a singularly 
correct forecast. In common with all nationalists he de- 
tested the House of Hapsburg as artificially clamping together 
diverse elements which Nature meant to exist separately. 
What, then, would he have said about the HohenzoUern- 
Hapsburg-Bulgar-Turkish compacts for the domination of 
neighboring lands? Probably he would have defended that 
strange league on the ground that the State is power and must 
hew its way through to more favorable positions on the North 
Sea and in the Levant; but assuredly such a plea would 
contradict his earlier contention, that the State must be 
conterminous with the nation, and that it is well even "to 
amputate alien elements of the population." ^ 

His eager nationalism led him to advocate the absorption 
of the smaller German States by Prussia; and indeed he 
invited her to attack them. The end, said he, would justify 
the means; and they would soon benefit by her vigorous 
rule. Such was his plea in 1864. He knew perfectly well 

^ Treitschke overlooked the Poles of Posen, then, as now, utterly un- 
Pnissianized. 



I30 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

that the King and Bismarck were then governing illegally 
and despotically. All the same, he prayed that they might 
succeed; for Prussia alone could unify Germany. She alone 
could win the coveted duchies, Schleswig-Holstein, and 
thereby assure to Germany a commanding position in the 
North Sea and the Baltic. Similar reasons induced him to 
side against Austria and her South German aUies in the 
struggle of 1866. After the triumph of Prussia, he, a Saxon 
by birth, demanded that she should annex Saxony outright, 
for the crime of taking the side of Austria; and he professed 
to be surprised and pained that his father should speak of him 
as "a political Jesuit." 

Treitschke persisted in his claim that Prussia should lead 
the German people forward to power and prosperity far 
beyond the bounds of the nation. In a remarkable passage in 
his essay Bundesstaat und Einheitsstaat he pleaded for an 
ejffective unity of Germans so that they might be able to 
compete with other peoples for the commerce of the oceans. 
The South Sea was calling for traders; and mighty united 
nations were pressing in, while the Germans could only fol- 
low humbly at a distance their more fortunate predecessors. 
Why should Germans be steeped in inland notions? Let 
them hear the call of the sea and organize themselves 
fitly for a great future. That future they could realize only 
by means of political unity. Enough of their old federalism! 
What they needed was unity — an Einheitsstaat (a united 
State). 

This was the thought that impelled his angry demand for 
the annexation of Saxony, as well as Hanover and Hesse 
Cassel. In August, 1870, even before Napoleon III was 
overthrown at Sedan, Treitschke passionately demanded the 
annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. That the people of those 
provinces objected to such a change was nought to him. 
"These provinces (he cries) are ours by the right of the sword; 



GERMAN THEORY OF THE STATE 131 

and we will rule them in virtue of a higher right; in virtue of 
the right of the German nation to prevent the permanent 
estrangement of her lost children from the Germanic Empire. 
We Germans, who know both Germany and France, know 
better what is for the good of the Alsatians than do those un- 
happy people themselves, who, in the perverse conditions of a 
French existence, have been denied any true knowledge of 
modern Germany. We desire, even against their will, to 
restore them to themselves." Then comes the naive and 
illuminating admission: "We are by no means rich enough to 
renounce so precious a possession." He also expressed the 
hope that the extension of the responsibihties of the German 
people would lift their poHtics above doctrinaire pettiness "to 
a great, strenuous and positive conduct of the affairs of the 
State." ^ 

This last statement is instructive, in view of the opposi- 
tion already offered by German Liberals and Socialists to 
the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. The progressive elements 
in Germany deprecated such an act,^ not only from principle, 
but also from expediency; from principle, because the transfer 
of people like cattle to an alien rule was abhorrent to democ- 
racy; from expediency, because the Government of these 
unwilling subjects must be more or less coercive; and coercion 
renders the Government harsher towards its own subjects, 
besides furthering the growth of militarism. Now, it was 
precisely for these reasons that Treitschke advocated the 
annexation. He wanted to have done with idealism in order 
to assure "a positive conduct of the affairs of the State," in 
other words, he aimed at the triumph of Realpolitik, Bis- 
marck was of the same mind as Treitschke. The Iron Chan- 
cellor, speaking to Busch just after Sedan, laughed at the 
notion that Germany would annex Alsace in order to re- 

^H. W. C. Davis, The Political Thought of Treitschke, p. 112. 
' Busch, Bismarck in the Franco-German War, 1, 147. 



132 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

teutonize her lost children. All that talk was merely the 
vaporing of German professors (not yet in favor): "It is the 
fortresses of Metz and Strassburg which we want, and which 
we will take." 

That is the essence of Realpolitik. Germany needs Metz 
and Strassburg for military reasons. Therefore she will 
annex them. True, a little later, Bismarck wavered about 
annexing the wholly French population of Metz; but the 
German Staff never wavered. They had their way, and that 
way led towards a more drastic polity. Thus, just as Freder- 
ick II 's persistent rigor resulted from his deliberate choice of 
an aggressive and therefore militarist poHcy, so, too, the ag- 
grandized Germany of 187 1 imposed on Europe the evils of 
an armed peace and on herself a more absolutist regime. 

In proportion as the aims of Berlin politicians became 
more and more objective, so did the teaching of Treitschke. 
He laughed at a pohtical science based on abstract principles, 
viz., the science of Kant, Fichte, Hegel. He clauned that it 
must be the outcome of the experience of each people. As 
the peoples differed widely in character and local conditions, 
so, too, must their polity. To affirm the necessary superiority 
of any one State-system was ridiculous. The nation must 
construct its own form of poUty in order that it might lead 
its own life. The true guide was history, not the doctrine 
of abstract right; for history showed what the people was and 
what it wanted. So far, good. Few EngHshmen will dis- 
pute these dicta. But Treitschke proceeded to claim that in 
matters political there was no positive right and wrong. 
Every nation must construct its own moral code — as the 
Germans have done. 

His reasoning at this point is illogical; for, though he 
postulated the complete supremacy of the State in secular 
affairs, he deliberately excepted matters of conscience which 
(said he) pertained to the relations between God and man, 



GERMAN THEORY OF THE STATE 133 

and were beyond the cognizance of the State. Yet the State 
must form its own code of moraHty. The only escape from 
the difficulty is to claim that State morality is something 
entirely separate from the morality of the individual. That 
is what the followers of Treitschke have both affirmed in 
their lecture-rooms and practiced in Belgium. 

Finally we may note that Treitschke identified the State, 
and the nation. He defined the State as a people united by' 
legal ties to form an independent power. On this subject 
again his ideas were inconsistent. Sometimes he denied that 
the State was an organism and declared it to be a person 
(presumably the nation personified). Elsewhere, however, 
he thus defined it: "The State is the public power for de- 
fensive and offensive purposes." (That is, it is a magnified 
drill-sergeant.) Pursuing this trend of thought, he thus 
narrowed down the functions of the State: "It only repre- 
sents the nation from the point of view of power" (a political 
Hercules). But, again, he said: "The State is the basis of all 
national life" (an eternized Frederick the Great). ^ 

It is difficult to frame any intelligible theory out of these 
descriptions; and the composite photograph made up from 
these personifications would be an odd creature, recognizable 
only by the spiked helmet. But there is one feature common 
to them all. They body forth the idea of power; they imply a 
something which functions with tremendous energy, which 
belongs more to the barracks and the workshop than to the 
Church and the University. Treitschke's State, whatever 
he may at times say to the contrary, is a mechanical contriv- 
ance designed for conquest; and to this contrivance the 
German people is closely linked. 

These conceptions of the State as drill-sergeant and of the 
populace as recruits mark a serious set back from the ideas 

1 Treitschke, Politik, I, pp. 28-32, 62-3; quoted by H. W. C. Davis, 
op. ciL, pp. 127-131. 



134 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

of Fichte; for he insisted on the ideal character of the nation. 
In his view the nation far transcended the State, which con- 
cerned itself with government and law. The nation looked 
to higher things, to the blossoming of the eternal and divine 
in the world. Despite his too hopeful idealism, Fichte was 
far nearer to the truth than Treitschke. For, surely, the 
State is the organism, while the nation is the brain and the 
soul. True, the nation needs the State to endow it with 
hands and feet. But the nation remains the directing agency 
vitalizing and directing the body politic. Indeed, the nation 
survives, even when all the machinery of Government is 
shattered. At this very time the Belgian State and the Ser- 
bian State scarcely exist; but the Belgian nation and the Serb 
nation endure — aye, and will endure; for their sublime 
courage has endowed them with immortaUty. This is what 
German politicians and German professors cannot under- 
stand. Destroy all the machinery of government and you 
have destroyed the nation, say Treitschke and his succes- 
sors. Possibly it is, in part, these mechanical notions which 
have led them astray into their recent adventures; for other- 
wise their conduct is altogether inexplicable. It becomes 
dimly intelhgible when compared with that of Napoleon, who, 
carrying eighteenth-century materiaUsm into the realm of 
high policy, deemed the Spanish nation conquered when he 
had beaten their armies and seized the machinery of govern- 
ment. It is the nemesis of a forceful regime that it neglects 
everything which cannot be measured in battalions, money, 
and foot-pounds. 

Treitschke had before him the example, not only of Na- 
poleon's disastrous blunder, but also that of two peoples who 
defied all assessment by ofiicial measures. During a century 
(with a short interval after Waterloo) the Poles enjoyed no 
poHtical existence. Yet have the Poles ever ceased to be a 
nation? The other instance is even more striking. During 



GERMAN THEORY OF THE STATE 135 

1800 years the Jews have had no State. Nevertheless, Jew- 
ish nationality is one of the powerful influences of the world, 
often seemingly destroyed, but ever rising again in Phoenix- 
like vitahty. In spite of these patent proofs of the superiority 
of the nation to the State, Treitschke and his many followers 
insist upon degrading the nation, which is essentially a spirit- 
ual entity, to the level of the organism which merely endows 
it with power for action. I believe that there is no hope for 
German pohtical thought until it frees itself from this dis- 
astrous confusion. ''Back to Fichte" ought to be the cry 
of all German idealists; for, though his pohtical creed con- 
tained much that was despotic, yet he proclaimed the all- 
important truth (veiled to Treitschke), that a nation exists 
in the realm of spirit and cannot be made or unmade by force. 
When that discovery is brought home to the German people 
they will have taken the first step towards a political renas- 
cence. Then they will liberate themselves from the traditions 
of Frederick the Great. Then they will reorganize themselves 
on rational lines, free from the overmastering influence of 
the Prussian State. 



LECTURE VIII 

NATIONALITY AND MILITARISM 

Our studies in national movements have been by no means 
complete. We have passed by the struggles of the Poles, 
Belgians, Greeks, and Hungarians, also the efforts of the 
French for a revival of their pohty in the critical years 187 1-5. 
The study of the French Risorgimento reveals the sterling 
worth of that people and also the practical usefulness of 
patriotism in rebuilding an almost shattered society. No 
better guide and inspiration can be found for the tremendous 
work of reconstruction which awaits the European peoples 
at the close of this disastrous war.^ 

We have also had to omit from our survey the most sur- 
prising of all national movements in our age, that of Japan. 
A genuinely patriotic impulse it was which suddenly trans- 
formed Japan from a mediaeval into a modern State, which 
absorbed much of the best in European civilization without 
impairing the strength of the old Japanese chivalry (Bushido). 
Finally it was a keen sense of national honor which flung 
back Russia from Korea, expelled Germany from Shang 
Tung, and is now loyally helping the Allies by furnishing 
Russia with the munitions of war. All this has been done 
by a people which less than half a century ago fought with 
bows and arrows and frightened the enemy with masks. 
It is a romance; and the soul of the romance is the intense 

1 The revival of France in 187 1-5 will form one of the "special periods" 
for the Historical Tripos of 191 7, etc; and will be dealt with by members 
of the Cambridge History School. 

136 



NATIONALITY AND MILITARISM 137 

patriotism which nerves the Japanese, from the highest 
to the lowest, with devotion to the Mikado as the embodi- 
ment of all that is holy and lofty in the national life. There 
is terrible poverty in Japan; but no Japanese would dream 
of whining: "I have no country to fight for." '^uict-k^^ 

These great movements one and all demonstrate the tre- -f 
mendous force of Nationality. It may be granted that 
that feeling appeared long ago in England, France, and 
Spain; yet its influence was fitful by comparison with that 
which it has recently exerted upon the European peoples; 
and I think we may ascribe its development largely to the 
spread of education and of facilities for trade and travel. 
In the Ancient and Mediaeval Worlds the town or even the 
village was the typical social unit. By degrees that unit 
enlarged. In times of general danger men recognized their 
kinship with men previously deemed strangers or enemies; 
and with the widening of social intercourse that conception 
acquired strength until it flashed forth in a universal con- 
sciousness at a time of mental exaltation such as that which 
exhilarated France in 1789-90. Elsewhere, as in Spain, Eng- 
land, and North Germany, danger of conquest by the for- 
eigner furnished the mental stimulus; and then what had 
been a group-consciousness, a county or provincial feeUng, 
became a permanently national feeling. As I have tried to 
show in these lectures, this widening outlook, this pride in 
the country instead of merely in the county, opens up an 
immense store of vital energy. There passes through those 
diverse groups and classes a thrill which makes them one 
body politic — not a corpus vile on which Kings and lawgivers 
may work their will, but a conscious powerful entity which 
bends them to its will. Such is the change which has come 
over the peoples. It has refashioned the map of Europe, 
forming in the centre massive blocks out of what was a 
feudal mosaic, dissolving the Ottoman Empire into its com- 



138 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

ponent racial groups, in short, giving political expression to 
the settlements of the peoples effected during the Dark Ages. 

Reverting to our poHtical bioscope of Lecture I, we see 
that the political boundaries of Europe now correspond 
nearly to the more permanent of the conquests made by the 
barbarian invaders who shattered the Roman Empire. First 
there was imperial unity, which gave way before tribal 
chaos; then there ensued long and painful jostlings; then an 
assorting process under monarchs; then there emerged groups 
of tribes nearly related, which developed at the expense of 
merely traditional or enforced groupings; finally there were 
formed the soHd homogeneous blocks of to-day. Obviously, 
here we have an elemental force of incalculable potency, 
whether for good or harm. The reasonable method of re- 
garding this national instinct is, not to sneer at it as something 
old-fashioned and certain soon to disappear before an en- 
lightened cosmopolitanism, but rather to try and understand 
it, so as to dissociate its baser elements from those which 
may further the progress of mankind. 

Firstly, then, what is Nationality, using the term in its 
abstract sense? ^ Perhaps we shall come nearer to the truth 
if we apply the method of exclusion and discover what it is 
not. Our studies have, I beHeve, led us to doubt whether it 
is determined by race. Let us consider this question in the 
light of the science of ethnology. We now know that the 
old notions about "the European family" and its supposed 
division into Celts, Teutons, etc., are without scientific 
foundation. There is no European family, no Celtic race, 
no Teutonic race. Anthropologists, by their careful exami- 
nations of certain physical characteristics, such as the shape 
of the skull and the color of hair and eyes, have proved that 
so-called racial divisions based on language or tradition are 

1 See the Preface for notes on the terms "people," "nation,' 
ahty." 



NATIONALITY AND MILITARISM 139 

not fundamental. Speaking broadly, there are three races in 
Europe: (i) the tall, fair, long-haired race which spreads 
from the British Isles and the North of France through 
Flanders and the North European plain and Scandinavia as 
far as the GuK of Finland; (2) the broad-headed race, gener- 
ally termed the Alpine, which inhabits the greater part of 
Central France, Central Europe, and the Balkan Peninsula; 
(3) the Mediterranean race, inhabiting the European lands 
north of the Mediterranean Sea, with the exception of North 
Italy and the Balkan Peninsula.-^ 

Science, then, knows of no essential physical difference 
between a North-West German, a Fleming, and a North 
Frenchman. There is a difference between this northern 
family and the Central and Southern Germans and French- 
men. Considered according to race, Germany is tripartite, 
and so is France. There is no marked distinction of race be- 
tween a Norman and a Hanoverian; between a Lyonnais 
and a Bavarian; between a Provencal and a Calabrian. In 
the French army there are three distinct racial types: so there 
are in the German army. Yet those three diverse types are 
welded into political and military entities, which oppose 
each other with the most desperate determination. But this 
pohtical and military grouping is not racial; it is based on 
difference of culture (using the term in its widest sense). 
Though there is no such thing as a Celtic or Teutonic race, 
Celtic or Teutonic culture is a reahty. So, too, the Anglo- 
Saxon people is a conglomerate, made up of several racial 
elements; but Anglo-Saxon culture has marked and distinct 
characteristics, which, from our present point of view, over- 
shadow the physical differences above noted. It is also im- 
portant to get rid of the old notion that there is a fundamental 

1 The above summary, of course, does not comprise the Jews, Turks, 
Bulgars, Magyars, and Finns. It is only a very general statement. 
Deniker subdivides the three races named above into several groups. 



''A *All^ 



140 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

physical difference between the average Englishman and the 
average North Frenchman, and between him and the average 
North German.^ What differences there are have developed 
later. They are due to language, tradition, religion, custom, 
and, finally, political grouping and political sentiment. Of 
course these differences make up nearly the whole of life to 
the modern man; but (to put it baldly) the Englishman is 
not a different animal from the North German, or he, again, 
from the North Frenchman. Science has rendered a great 
service by disproving that hoary superstition. 
C No! Only in a very crude form (like that which now pre- 
I vails in Germany and the Balkans) does NationaHty depend 
i.on jace. The Belgian litterateur, Laveleye, well expressed 
the thought: "In proportion as the culture of a people ad- 
vances, identity of race and of blood exercises less power on 
it, and historic memories exercise more power. Above 
ethnical nationalities there are poHtical nationalities, formed 
by choice (one may say), rooted in love of liberty, in the cult 
of a glorious past, in accord of interests, in similarity of moral 
ideas, and of all that forms the intellectual life."^ Here, 
however, I must regretfully remark that this peaceful and 
ideal development is apt to be interrupted by inrushes of 
sentiment and passion. At such crises, especially during 
war, the adage "Blood is thicker than water" holds good; 
and the affinities produced by generations of culture vanish 
under the drag of racial instincts that seemed to be dead. 
Then the cultured European gives place to the tribal warrior. 
In normal circumstances, however. Nationality does not 
depend on race. Does it, then, depend on language? Here 
certainly we come nearer to a powerful political influence. 
But again consider. In the French army are Bretons and a 
few Basques and Spaniards who speak no French, yet are 

1 W. Z. Ripley, The Races of Europe, ch. 6. 

*E. Laveleye, Le Gouvernement et la Democratie (1891), I, p. 58. 



NATIONALITY AND MILITARISM 141 

enthusiastically French at heart. In the German army are 
Wends who in a pohtical sense are thoroughly Germanized, 
not to speak of Poles, Danes, and Lorrainers who are not 
Germanized. In the Austrian army are peoples speaking 
eleven distinct languages; yet there is in that army, as in the 
Austrian Empire, far more solidarity that was believed to 
be possible. But the crowning proof that language does not 
determine Nationality is found in Switzerland. The Swiss 
comprise portions of three peoples, which speak French, 
German, and Italian;^ yet they remain at peace, though 
over the borders their kith and kin are at war. How is this 
possible? Merely^ecause langua,ge does not determine 
nationality. The sentiment of Swiss Nationality, rooted in 
pride in their historic past and in contentment with an almost 
ideal polity, has triumphed over linguistic differences. Tri- 
lingual Switzerland remains at peace — agitated, it is true, 
for language is a powerful tie. Nevertheless, the spiritual 
union of that people holds firm; and its triumph is an augury 
of hope for the future. Scarcely less remarkable is the case 
of the Jews, at which we glanced in Lecture I. They have 
retained their solidarity, though dispersed during long ages, 
and divided by sharp differences of language. Only where 
congregated together in large numbers do they habitually 
use Hebrew. In Spain and the Balkan States they use 
Spanish; in Russia and Poland they speak either Polish or a 
corrupt German; in Morocco, Arabic. Yet they rarely lose 
their Nationality.^ 
The case of the Swiss and that of the Jews, then, seems to 

^ I omit the Romansch, spoken in the Engadine, as too small to count. 

2 Ripley, op. cit., p. 369; S. B. Rohold, The War and the Jew (Toronto, 
1915), shows that 350,000 Jews are fighting for Russia, 180,000 for 
Austria, over 15,000 for us, and over 10,000 for France. Yet, though 
loyally obeying their Governments and fighting against their co-religion- 
ists, they remain Jews. 



142 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

\show that language is not necessary to, though it may help 
'on, the forming of a nation. Probably, with the spread 
of education, language will play a smaller part than before. 
Welsh is dying in several parts of Wales, especially in the 
industrial districts; and the smaller languages will doubtless 
vanish, and with them racial differences and jealousies. 
Migration and emigration help on the assimilating process. 
In the United States and Canada few languages except 
English, French, and German have a chance of surviving, 
and French and German only in certain areas. Speaking 
generally, in the new lands the smaller languages tend to 
disappear. Dutch (in a very simplified form) persists in 
South Africa; but there, too, commerce helps on the more 
useful language, English. Indeed, the victory of General 
Botha over Herzog at the polls in South Africa may prove 
to be the beginning of a genuinely Anglo-Dutch reunion, 
which will be neither English nor Dutch, but Africander 
(perhaps bi-lingual for some generations), loyal to the Em- 
pire which not only tolerates but fosters within its fold 
all peoples, all creeds, all languages. The present war has 
f been a terrible set back to the progress of mankind; for it 
^has revived national hatreds and has arrayed against each 
other peoples speaking different languages; but there are 
tendencies at work, more permanent than war, which lessen 
linguistic differences and induce peoples of diverse tongues 
to live together in friendly union. Of these Federations, 
Switzerland, the United States, and the British Empire 
(which is in spirit a Federation rather than an Empire) 
form the most promising examples; and the present disastrous 
conflict will probably tend ultimately to strengthen the devel- 
opment of such unions existing independently of race or 
language. Such at least is the tendency among the leading 
peoples of the West. They do not need to conquer their 
neighbors; they attract them by the charm of their culture. 



NATIONALITY AND MILITARISM 143 

And this, surely, is the type of Nationality which will ulti- 
mately prevail over the crude force that is now devastating 
the world. 
Nr- No! Nationality does not depend on language. Still less 
does it depend on a State. As we saw in the last lecture, 
a nation that depends on a State is mistaking an organism 
for the life and soul of that organism. In modem times, 
national feeling has fashioned States, and is always at work 
refashioning them in accordance with new needs. Nations 
make States; not States, nations. The one exception is 
Prussia; so long as she limited herself to the unification of 
the German people, she achieved remarkable success; but 
so soon as the Prussian State sought to Germanize other 
peoples, it utterly failed. Herein, surely, lies one of the chief 
causes of the deep hostility between the Germans and other 
peoples. The Germans have glorified the State and have 
sought to force their Kultur on neighboring highly ciyilized 
peoples, who resent that process. Even if, by some miracle, 
they succeeded in this war, their effort would be doomed to 
failure, as surely as that of Napoleon the Great. For it 
violates a fundamental conviction of the modern man. -i 

Lastly, is Nationality an emanation of the World-Spirit? ^ / 

Hegel (in his Philosophy of History , 1830) put forth a theory" ""w 5^ 
which assumed that a world-force visited the peoples in a , ;L«v*' 
predetermined order and endowed them with exceptional /^^ -v 
vitality for some special task. While they performed that 
task, they were *^ moral, virtuous, vigorous." Thereafter, ^ 

they declined, and another took up that or some similar task. 
The theory finds little support from History. It breaks down 
in the case of China, which during thousands of years has 
pursued the even tenor of its way, with few signs of decHne, 
and, indeed, recently with many signs of rejuvenescence. The 
theory also seeks to account for the decay of the nations, both 
ancient and modern, on a single hypothesis; whereas history 



144 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

shows that decline and decay were due to very diverse causes, 
many of them of an agrarian or social character but slightly 
understood in Hegel's day. Nations also may seem to be on 
the downward trend, like the France of Louis XV and XVI, 
and then by a conscious and determined effort of reform they 
will shoot up again to unimagined heights of power, declining 
once more when that power is abused by a dictator, Napoleon. 
If Napoleon was the chief emanation of the World-Spirit, 
as Hegel long assumed him to be, how came it that he left 
France far weaker than he found her? Did the World-Spirit 
suddenly change its mind in 1813 and resolve to desert him 
and go over to the Allies? 

On these and similar topics the World-Spirit theory offers 
no adequate explanation. Indeed, it cannot explain the 
complex phenomena of the rise and fall of nations. That 
certain peoples have now and again displayed marvellously 
increased vigor is true; but that phenomenon is generally 
due to one or more of the following causes: There may be a 
fusing together of various tribes by some able leader or under 
the impulse of religious fervor (as happened to the Arabs 
after the time of Mohammed). A great warrior may have 
incited peoples to wars of ambition. Or, on the other hand, a 
nation, when threatened with conquest, may be thrown back 
on itself and develop to the utmost the powers that generally 
go unused. Or, again, a people can be stimulated by becom- 
ing the exponent of some great idea, as were the Swedes of 
Gustavus Adolphus by Reformation fervor, or the French 
Revolutionists by the ideas of liberty, equality, and National- 
ity. Lastly, geographical discoveries and mechanical inven- 
tions bring some peoples to the front and depress the fortunes 
of others, as is evident from the history of Venice, Portugal, 
Holland, Great Britain. Looking at the causes that make for 
the rise and fall of nations, we discern a great variety; they 
range from warlike ambition or the spur of hunger, to impulses 



NATIONALITY AND MILITARISM 145 

of an ideal nature, such as religious zeal, or newly aroused 
national pride, or wars of liberation. Sometimes a new energy 
raises the people to a higher level of thought, art, or inven- 
tion. Again, it drives them to the conquest of new markets. 
How is it possible to refer to any one cause impulses of so 
bewildering a variety? Label your causa causans "World- 
Spirit" if you like; but remember that it is a very Proteus, 
now flashing forth as a warrior, then shrinking into a huck- 
ster; now an artist or poet, then a poUtician; now a philoso- 
pher, then an explorer; now an admiral, then a mechanic or 
engineer. You must run through the whole range of life in 
order to fill up all the characters that your Spirit may assume. 

Lastly, remember that the theory of a World-Spirit in- 
flating one people and deflating others in a predetermined 
order is morally mischievous. For it tends to puff up with 
pride a people which beUeves it detects some sign of the 
spiritual afflatus; while it also disheartens peoples that deem 
the deflating process begun, and thereby discourages the 
timely efforts at reform which can nearly always avert 
collapse. Believe me, that a fatahstic theory, such as that 
of the World-Spirit, has little warrant from history. It does 
not apply to peoples that refuse to bow down to the supposed 
decrees of fate. Only those peoples are sure to perish who 
tamely prostrate themselves before those decrees.^ 

We have now cleared the ground of faulty or inadequate 
explanations of Nationality. Perhaps we shall best under- 
stand what it is if we briefly review the events that first made 
it a force in the modern world. ^^^-^-t^^-tt^^ X/'^^ 

Recent history is held to begin with the French Revolu^ ^'t^*^ 
tion of 1789: and Alison classed all the campaigns up tO\ ; *, ri 
Waterloo under the Revolution. Is it not truer to fact to sub- . , . 
divide the period and say that the first phase of Nationality 

^ I think that Nationality explains several of the cases of exceptional 
vitality which Hegel ascribed to his Worid-Spirit. 



146 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

as distinct from Democracy begins with the Spanish Rising 
of 1808? It ends with Waterloo. The second phase com- 
mences fitfully in 1830 and 1848, and more definitely with the 
Italian War of Liberation in 1859. From 1859 to the present 
is pre-eminently the climax of the Age of Nationality. By 
this I mean that the idea has permeated the masses of the 
population and has increased their power for action. True, 
the national idea had previously dawned upon poets and 
thinkers. It vibrates in the verse of Dante, Chaucer, and 
Shakespeare; but, as we saw in Lecture I, it did not permeate 
the masses, except at intense moments of their life, such as 
coincided with the exploits of Jeanne d'Arc, the repulse of the 
Spanish Armada, or the revolt of the Dutch "Beggars" 
against Spain. Subsequently, it died down even in France, 
England, and Holland; for the Religious Wars divided peoples 
against themselves, and, on the cessation of those strifes, 
dynastic wars or the growth of absolutist States half stifled 
the sentiment. Louis XIV personified the French nation, but 
so successfully that the nation was but half aware of its own 
existence. 

Much preparatory work had to be done before this dis- 
/covery was possible. The shipbuilders, road-makers, and 
traders played their part in bringing men together. Thinkers 
pointed out what was natural, what artificial, in their society. 
But when all this preliminary work was ended, and men of 
different provinces of France began to greet each other instead 
of scowling, any widespread impulse was certain to produce a 
new and vital union. 

Such an event was the Revolution. It changed the half- 
'animate clods into citizens, but it also sent through them 
a sympathetic thrill which made the citizens a nation. France 
is often termed the political laboratory of Europe; for her 
actions are more striking than are the gradual unfoldings that 
characterize our annals. Certainly, it is in French history 



NATIONALITY AND MILITARISM 147 

that the development of Nationality is most clearly outlined. 
The merging of different peoples and diverse provinces in a 
single monarchy was the work of French monarchs and 
statesmen, so that, except in a few moments of inspiration, 
the nation existed only by and in the person of the King. As 
the monarchy declined under Louis XV and XVI, the nation 
emerged; and, early in the Revolution (as we saw in Lec- 
ture II), the disputes of the National Assembly with the King 
brought the sense of Nationality to sudden maturity. It 
found expression during the famous sitting of August 4, 1789, 
when Lorraine, youngest of the French provinces, expressed 
her desire to join intimately in the life of "this glorious 
family." '=Zf^^^J,j ^^<^t:7r^f ^ yf, fry lu 

I know of no words that better describe Nationality. It is . JJ,^ 
an instinct^ and cannot be exactly defined; it is the recognition 
as kinsmen of those who were deemed strangers; it is the 
apotheosis of family feehng, and begets a resolve never again 
to separate; it leads to the founding of a polity on a natural 
basis, independent of a monarch or a State, though not in any 
sense hostile to them; it is more than a political contract; it is 
a union of hearts, once made, never unmade. These are the - 
characteristics of Nationality in its highest form — a spiritual-^ 
conception, unconquerable, indestructible. So soon as clans, 
tribes, or provinces catch the glow of this wider enthusiasm, 
they form a nation. And thus it was that France burst into 
her new life. Her long chrysaUs stage, when patriotism clung 
about the old monarchy, was ended; and the nation stood 
erect and defiant. England, Italy, lUyria, Spain, Russia, 
Germany, successively felt the impact of this new vital force, 
and responded with messages, first of sympathy, then of dis- 
trust, finally of hostility. Thus, within twenty-five years, 
Europe was awake, and became a camp of warring nations. 

During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Age, then, 
France exhibits NationaHty at its best and at its worst. In its 



148 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

higher developments in 1789-91 that principle endowed her 
with a distinct and vivid consciousness, so that what had 
been a set of limbs, worked in the main by a master, became a 
body-politic — nay, more, a soul-politic that defied division. 
In this new and intense life she exerted a singular fascination 
on all peoples. Thinkers felt her magnetic potency. Goethe, 
unresponsive to German politics, bowed before the manifesta- 
tion of her uncanny strength at Valmy. Schiller and Fichte 
hailed her as the source of Hght and warmth to a dead world. 
Wordsworth and Coleridge first felt the full thrill of poetic 
ecstasy as they gazed on her civic raptures, and foretold 
defeat to all who withstood her new-found might. That 
was Nationality in its purest form. It corresponds to the 
\ time in life when the youth finds himself. 

But, as often happens in human affairs, this strength ran 
riot. SeK-realization begot self-confidence, and that in its 
turn contempt for those who were still inert. Hence the 
crusade of 1792 for the liberation of unfree peoples degen- 
erated into wars of aggression. As Wordsworth phrased it: — 

"But now, become oppressors in their turn, 
Frenchmen had changed a war of self-defence 
For one of conquest, losing sight of all 
Which they had struggled for. . . . 

... I read her doom, 
With anger vexed, with disappointment sore." ^ 

This sudden degeneration of French Nationality reminds 

us that there is a baser side to the instinct. In this respect 

it does not aim at the union of all who desire to share in the 

*''l common life, but seeks to compel aliens to come in. It uses 

force, not attraction. Its outcome is tyranny, not liberty; a 

military Empire, not a free Federation. 

Not only events in France in 1792-18 15, but also the 

1 Wordsworth, Prelude, Bk. XI. 



NATIONALITY AND MILITARISM 149 

Continental movements of 1848-9 reveal the ease with which 
Nationalism is perverted and becomes an enemy to freedom. 
When the peoples of Italy, France, Germany, and Austria- 
Hungary rose to demand constitutional rule and a more 
natural political grouping. Democracy and Nationality 
seemed for a time to have achieved a complete triumph. 
But the two principles soon clashed, especially among the 
Germans and Magyars. In Hungary, the Magyars won their 
freedom from the House of Hapsburg, but soon showed their 
unfitness for the boon. No sooner did they gain constitutional 
rights than they used them to force the Magyar language on 
their Slav fellow-subjects — an act of intolerance fatal to 
Hungary in 1849, as similar acts have been in the recent 
past.^ At other points, too, the NationaUsts of 1849 strained 
their case to breaking point, with the result that in Central 
Europe and to a less extent in Italy Democracy and National- 
ity parted company, to their mutual detriment. 

The upshot of it all was that the programme of Mazzini 
failed in the sphere of practice; and the peoples, unable to 
achieve self-expression by their unaided exertions, fell back 
on the methods of diplomacy and force exemplified in the 
careers of Cavour and Bismarck, and championed by the 
Houses of Savoy and HohenzoUern. In that statement 
much Hes enfolded; for it impHes that they entered upon 
paths parallel to those which led Revolutionary France 
towards Militarism. ^/c^Jju 

True: the successes won by Cavour and Bismarck were 
phenomenal. The Italian and German movements rushed 
to victory in the eleven years 1859-70; but I believe that all i\M-^ 
intelHgent Germans now regret the suddenness and the j^ ^ 
brilliance of that triumph of military force. Better that 

1 Bluntschli {Theory of the State, Bk. II, ch. 3) says that a State cannot 
deny a Nationality the use of its language and literature, though it may 
use the predominant language for convenience. 



^ 



150 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

Germany and Italy had struggled on some decades longer, 
and won their national unity by less forceful means and at 
the cost of fewer national antipathies. 

Let us retrace our steps in order to observe the parallel 
courses of MiHtarism in Republican France and Bismarckian 
Prussia. As we saw in Lecture II, France adopted the prin- 
ciple of civic service for her newly enfranchised sons in 1789; 
and Lafayette, shortly after the capture of the Bastille, when 
founding the new National Guard, pronounced that force 
"an institution at once civic and military, which must prevail 
over the old tactics of Europe, and which will reduce arbitrary 
Governments to the alternative of being beaten if they do not 
imitate it, or overthrown [by their subjects] if they dare to 
imitate it." ^ This remarkable prophecy did not come true 
until the national danger became acute; but then, in the 
spring of 1793, the organization of the National Guards was 
greatly extended, so much so as to cause the first outbreaks in 
recalcitrant La Vendee. After the individualist Girondins 
were overthrown on June 2, thoroughgoing Jacobins leaped 
to power, and they proceeded to enforce the principle of 
national service. With Robespierre supreme in the Com- 
mittee of Public Safety and Carnot as its military organizer, 
conscription became the groundwork of the national defence. 
In a great speech at the Jacobins' Club on August 11 Robes- 
pierre thus set forth the gravity of the military crisis: "... 
The remedy is in you yourselves. ... If the whole people 
does not derive fresh courage from our reverses; if one single 
citizen fails to rush forward to devote himself to the salvation 
of the country by beating back its oppressors, it is all up with 
Liberty: she will not survive our courage." Thereafter a 
Report was presented to the National Convention urging 
drastic measures, because "half measures are always fatal 
in extreme peril. The whole nation is easier to move than a 
1 Lafayette, Minis., II, 267. 



NATIONALITY AND MILITARISM 151 

part of the nation. . . . Let there be no exceptions save 
those which are necessary for the sowing and harvesting of 
the crops." Barere then declared that the whole nation 
ought to rise in defence of freedom and constitution and to 
drive out the foreign despots and their satellites. On Au- 
gust 23 the National Convention placed all males of mihtary 
age permanently at the service of the armies. The decree ran 
thus: "The young men shall go to fight; married men shall 
forge weapons and transport supplies; the women shall make 
tents and uniforms or serve in the hospitals; the children 
shall make lint; the old men shall be carried to the public 
squares to excite the courage of soldiers, hatred of kings, 
and enthusiasm for the unity of the Republic." ^ That is 
how France interpreted the new device on its flags: "The 
French nation risen against tyrants." 

It has been asserted that the decree of 1798 is the first 
law of conscription. True, it carried out more methodically 
the system imposed in August, 1793. But the later decree 
was merely the extension of the earlier decree, which gave 
France those massive arrays so fatal to the thin lines of 
Coburg and the Duke of York. The momentum of the new 
national forces carried them into Holland, the Rhineland, 
and the Genoese Riviera in the campaigns of 1794-5, thus 
inaugurating the period of conquest, which was prolonged by 
the genius and ambition of Napoleon. 

These facts should be noted carefully; for they dispose 
of the assertions often made, that conscription was a device 
of the monarchs for the enslavement of their peoples. Far 
from that, conscription was a device of the most democratic 
government in the world for the expulsion of the armies of the 
monarchs. None of them dared to copy the democratic 
principle of national service, until Frederick WiUiam III of 
Prussia doubtfully adopted it as a desperate expedient for 
1 Hist, parlemmtaire, XXVIII, 455-469. 



152 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

saving that humiliated State from utter ruin; and the Prussian 
army, when nationaHzed, played a very important part in the 
overthrow of Napoleon. I believe that there is a vague 
notion that conscription originated with him. He merely 
systematized its application. The responsibility for the 
introduction of the system lies with the French Republicans 
of 1793 and 1798. It was therefore a result of the national 
and democratic sentiment which swept through France at the 
time of her great Revolution. The statement that Militarism 
is the outcome of a deep-laid plot of rulers to enslave their 
peoples is so far wrong, that, after the Restoration of the 
French Bourbons in 1814-5, the national army was con- 
siderably reduced; and the same thing happened among 
other peoples. Autocrats do not like universal service; for 
they cannot trust it. Thus ended Militarism in its first 
phase. 
v^ The second, or Prussian, phase began in i860, when, for 
>^»^ purposes of defence, after the humiliations of the previous 
fr*^years, the Regent (soon King), William I of Prussia, intro- 

^^ujA/iuced the first of his famous Army Bills. They were fiercely 

ly ^^pposed by the Prussian Parliament in the belief that he 
A \r ^ould make the army the tool of absolutism. But his aim was 

. ^yTtW^atriotic, not despotic. After the overthrow of Denmark and 
^ ^ Austria by means of that army, Prussian Liberals withdrew 
their opposition and condoned all the illegal proceedings of 
years 1860-6. Why? Because, however high-handed, the 
the Bismarckian policy had enabled them to win Schleswig- 
Holstein from the Danes and to weld the North German 

' States on the firm basis of the Prussian monarchy. Their 

constitutional scruples vanished when it appeared that the 
policy of "blood and iron" had prevailed over two neigh- 
boring States, and had nearly solved the problem of German 
unity. The Prussian deputies now saw that the King's aim 
had been national. The triumph of 1870 clinched the success 



[JiJ^ 



NATIONALITY AND MILITARISM 153 

of Prussia; and the German Empire of 187 1, though federal in 
form, was, in effect, an enlargement of Prussia. In March, 
1849, King Frederick William IV had solemnly promised that 
Prussia should merge herself in Germany. In 187 1 Germany 
merged herself in Prussia. 

The brilHance of these military triumphs led neighboring .. ^^!t>^ 
peoples to copy the Prussian army; and once again Europe^ ^^^^ 
became an armed camp. The results are well known. Just 
as Napoleon diverted to purposes of conquest a citizen- 
army which at first was solely defensive, so Kaiser Wilhelm II /t.^-*^ 
has misused the enormous resources of men, arms, and money ^ ^^ , -i'* ' 
which his grandfather is believed to have amassed primarily . ^ ^^ . 
for the sake of defence. Worst of all, the national army v 
which enabled Prussia in 1866-70 to effect the unity of Ger- 
many, has been prostituted to colossal schemes of aggrand- 
izement at the expense of weaker neighbors. The conduct 
of Wilhelm II in this century therefore resembles that of 
Napoleon a century ago. But in one respect the Hohen- 
zoUern has less excuse than the Corsican. In the years 1805- 
15 national sentiment was far less developed than it is to-day. 
A century of effort has strengthened the individuality of 
all the peoples, so that their merging in any one State or 
Union, which was possible under Napoleon, is unthinkable 
under Wilhelm. Prussia now offers her victims no high 
ideal of citizenship, only the prospect of unhmited drilling 
with a view to the subjection of other peoples; no inspiring 
traditions such as glorified the French Empire — Httle else 
than records of astute opportunism, sudden attack, and now, 
as in 1 87 1, brutality in the hour of real or fancied triumph. 
Such is the history of fifty-five years of Prussian MiUtarism. 
Under Napoleon (at any rate up to Friedland, 1807) the 
French polity had not so far belied its democratic origin 
as to be a tool of despotism and ambition. The men who 
carried Napoleon's eagles to Vienna, Rome, and Warsaw 



154 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

believed that they were furthering the cause of liberty. 
Do the German troops in Belgium, Poland, and Serbia be- 
lieve that? Will a foreign poet and a foreign composer 
ever sound forth the heroism and chivalry of zwei Grenadieren^ 
as Heine and Schumann immortalized those of Napoleon? 



LECTURE rX 

NATIONALISM SINCE 1885 

"Weak and incapable nations must look on while foreign na- 
tionalities gain in number and importance within the borders of 
their State." — Prince von BiJLOW, Imperial Germany, p. 240. 

The previous studies have illustrated the excellences and 
defects of the national movements up to the year 1885. The 
instinct of Nationality has endowed the European peoples ^ 
and Japan (perhaps soon we shall add China) with a vitality ( ^^ 
and force which resembles, say, the incoming of steam-power ( 
into industry. What previously had been minutely sub-^ 
divided and inert became united, vigorous, aggressive. Con- 
trast the ridiculous Germany at which Heine mocked, the 
torpid Italy which Mazzini awakened, with the great and 
powerful nations of to-day. The changes wrought by the 
national wars of the years 1859-70 are among the most im- 
portant of all time; for they altered not only the polity but 
the national character in France, Germany, and Italy. ^ 
Further, the Balkan peoples were nerved to struggle for 
their rights, and in 1876-8 and 1885 they largely succeeded 
in shaking off the Turkish yoke. In the autumn of 1885 
the union of the two Bulgarias almost completed the aspira- 

^In a Paris paper early in February, 1871, was an article by "Fer- 
ragus" which began: "Bismarck has probably done better service to 
France than to Germany. He has worked for a false unity in his country, 
but very effectually for a regeneration of ours. He has freed us from the 
Empire. He has restored to us our energy, our hatred for the foreigner, 
our love for our country, our contempt for life, our readiness for self- 
sacrifice, in short all the virtues which Napoleon III had killed in us." 



156 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

tions of that people; and (as we saw in Lecture VI) it enabled 
them to escape from Russian tutelage and to proceed with 
internal developments of great promise. On the other hand 
British policy, which under Lord Beaconsfield had thwarted 
the national efforts of the Balkan peoples, now, under Lord 
Salisbury, resumed its traditional role of protector of the 
small nationalities. Thus, up to the month of September, 
1885, Nationalism won portentous triumphs. True, in 1866 
Prussia overstepped her fair limits by annexing the Danes 
of North Schleswig, and in 1871 by wrenching Alsace-Lor- 
raine from France. Still, the balance was decidedly favorable 
for the national principle. 

We now approach events of a different order. I propose 
to review them here as impartially as possible, and in the 
main to leave you to draw your own conclusions. 

On November 14, 1885, King Milan of Serbia suddenly 
declared war against Bulgaria on a frivolous pretext, his 
real reason being jealousy of the increase of her power con- 
sequent on the recent union. The Serbs entered Bulgaria, 
and were advancing towards Sofia, when the Bulgars, speedily 
rallying, soundly beat them at Slivnitza, and chased them 
back into their own territory. Near Pirot the victors were 
bidden to halt. The Austrian general, Khevenhiiller, de- 
clared in imperious terms that any further advance would 
oblige the Dual-Monarchy to send in its white-coats. The 
Bulgars thereafter retired, and patched up matters with 
Serbia; but the incident rankled in the breasts of both 
peoples and excited racial jealousies dating back five cen- 
turies to the time of Serbia's glory under the sway of King 
Dushan. 

The collision has a double significance. Only seven years 
after deliverance from their bondage to the Turk two Chris- 
tian peoples flew at one another's throats and thereby pro- 
voked hatreds whose ghastly sequel has recently appalled 



NATIONALISM SINCE 1885 157 

the world. Secondly, the intervention of Austria on behalf 
of her protege. King Milan, gave color to the story that she 
had incited him to that fratricidal attack in order to weaken 
the Balkan peoples and thus prepare the way for her advance 
southwards to Salonica. As she had bargained with the Tsar 
in 1876 with a view to the acquisition of that long-coveted 
port,^ she probably had a hand in Milan's enterprise. There- 
after both he and his son, Alexander (the latter reigned at 
Belgrade from 1889 to 1903) were notoriously under Haps- 
burg patronage, which often screened them from the resent- 
ment of the Serb people. The murder of Alexander and the 
accession of Peter (of the Karageorge family) inaugurated 
a national policy, which increasingly incurred the displeasure 
of the Hapsburgs. But, despite the long tutelage of Serbia 
by them, and that of Bulgaria by the Tsar Alexander III; 
even despite the cruelties of the Sultan Abdul Hamid II 
against both the Serbs and Bulgars in Macedonia, these races 
could not lay aside their mutual hatreds. Consequently, 
the ideal of a Balkan Federation remained a dream; and 
disgust at the narrow and vindictive Nationalism of the 
Balkan peoples probably figured among the motives which 
led the new Tsar, Nicholas II (1894- ), to turn away from 
their exasperating feuds towards the golden visions opening 
out in the Far East. Whatever his reasons, he certainly took 
less interest than his father in Balkan affairs. 

In 1897 the Greeks struggled unsuccessfully to extend 
their too narrow bounds in Thessaly. They met with no 
support whatever from Serbs and Bulgars, and succumbed 
to an unexpectedly sharp counter-stroke from Turks and 
Albanians. In the same year ruthless massacres of Mace- 
donians and Armenians by order of Abdul Hamid mani- 
fested his resolve to effect a Moslem revival by the tradi- 
tional Turkish method; and the sight of this energy produced 
1 Debidour, Hist, diplomatique de V Europe, II, 515. 



158 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

no small impression at Berlin. In face of these glaring vio- 
lations of the articles of the Treaty of 1878, guaranteeing 
good government to the Christian subjects of the Sultan, 
Great Britain, France, and Italy displayed an apathy highly 
discreditable to their rulers. Their inaction in a matter 
closely concerning their honor, the orientation of Russian 
policy, and the warlike prowess of Abdul Hamid served to 
strengthen a Panislam movement, which soon received a pub- 
lic benediction from Kaiser Wilhelm 11. During his Eastern 
tour in 1898 (that is, two years after the adoption of 
Weltpolitik) he announced his resolve to befriend the Sultan 
and the 300,000,000 Moslems — a declaration destined to 
strengthen Mohammedan fanaticism and to cause further 
massacres of the Christians of the Ottoman Empire. Further 
troubles having ensued, especially in that seething cauldron 
of races, Macedonia, the Emperors of Russia and Austria 
drew up at Miirzsteg in 1903 a programme of reforms for an 
improved administration of that province.^ The "Miirzsteg 
Programme" completed and strengthened one that the two 
Sovereigns had framed in 1897, the other Powers on both 
occasions agreeing to delegate special functions to those 
previously rival Empires. Both efforts to put down anarchy 
in Macedonia failed, either from lack of energy in the efforts, 
or because the racial feuds were insoluble. Accordingly, 
the Great Powers once more took up the duties imposed on 
them by the Treaty of Berlin, and in April, 1907, sought to 
cure the maladministration of Macedonia. This attempt 
came too late; for the situation had recently changed in 

^ Very many Macedonians have no definite racial affinity, which 
enables rival claimants to number the Greeks either 600,000 or 200,000; 
the Bulgars, 2,000,000, 1,500,000, or 60,000; the Serbs 2,050,000 or nil; 
the Wallachs 100,000 or 75,000; the Turks 600,000 or 230,000. See J. 
Cvijic, Remarques sur VEthnographie de la Macedoine; Ichircoff, Etude 
ethnographique sur les Slaves de Macedoine (Paris, 1908). 



NATIONALISM SINCE 1885 159 

favor of the Central Empires. Russia was badly beaten by- 
Japan in 1904-5, whereupon the Berlin Government dic- 
tated terms to France in the Moroccan affair of 1905-6; 
and, with the accession of Aehrenthal to office, in 1906, 
Austria entered upon a vigorous foreign policy. The results 
were seen in an increase of Teutonic energy in all quarters, 
while the Slav cause, which Russia had neglected since 1897, 
underwent a notable decHne, the prestige of Austria and 
Turkey proportionately rising. 

These facts explain the daring stroke of Austria in annexing 
Bosnia outright; while at the same time her protege, Prince 
Ferdinand of Bulgaria, proclaimed himself Tsar of the Bul- 
garians (October, 1908). Coming soon after the Young Turk 
Revolution at Constantinople, these events foreshadowed 
a future in which Austria, Bulgaria, and a renovated Turkey 
would share the Peninsula about equally between them. 
Germany threw her weight into the scale in favor of Austria; 
and a threat from Kaiser Wilhelm to Russia in the spring of 
1909 caused the latter to accept the Hapsburgs' /ai/ accompli 
in Bosnia. Thenceforth the future of the Balkans lay with 
the Central Empires and with their proteges , Bulgaria and 
Roumania. 

To the confusion caused by threats from without were 
added the miseries due to ever-increasing racial feuds and 
mad misgovernment. The Young Turks, far from carrying 
out their much-vaunted programme of reforms, soon exas- 
perated their subjects by an " Ottomanizing" policy of the 
most pedantic and irritating kind. Consequently, the Greek, 
Serb, and Bulgar elements in Macedonia despaired of ob- 
taining redress except by force, and what the Turkish vam- 
pires spared the armed bands of these rival races swept off. 
The beginning of the end came for Ottoman rule when the 
usually faithful Albanians rose in revolt against stupid inter- 
ferences with their customs and language. Consequently, 



i6o NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

the Eastern Question in 1909-12 entered upon its last and 
most terrible phase. 

While Nationalism in the Balkans made more and more 
for strife, the same instinct waxed powerful and aggressive 
in Central Europe. The interaction of these cyclonic systems 
has finally produced the present appalling tempest. In order 
to understand that interaction and the tremendous forces 
which it set in motion, we must retrace our steps and note 
the rise of Chauvinism in Germany and the outlet which it 
sought to acquire towards the East. 

As we have already seen. Kaiser Wilhelm II has modelled 
his policy largely on that of Frederick the Great. Now, dur- 
ing that reign, as also subsequently, Prussia often made use 
of the Turks to annoy and weaken either Russia or Austria, 
whenever those realms were at feud with her. Another fact is 
equally significant. The rival Houses of Hapsburg and 
HohenzoUern have rarely continued long in close union except 
for purposes of aggression against their neighbors. Cases in 
point are their agreements to effect the Partitions of Poland 
(1772, 1793, 1795, though in 1793 Austria complained of being 
left in the lurch) and those of 1792 and 1815 for the annexa- 
tion of large portions of France. In 1827-30 they united in 
order to thwart the emancipation of Greece, then championed 
by Russia, France, and England, the general aim of the 
Germanic Powers being to uphold Turkish authority and 
stay the growth of the Christian peoples of the Balkans.^ 
But that negative and cramping policy has of late given way 
to one that has sought to range Turkey, if possible along with 
Roumania and Bulgaria, on the side of the Central Empires. 
Serb nationalists, inspired by jealousy of Bulgaria and the 

^See, too, Debidour, Hist, diplomatique de I'Europe, II, 181-3, for 
Austria's opposition to the formation of the Principality of Roumania 
in 1858, which was helped on by Russia and Napoleon III, "the friend 
of nationalities." 



NATIONALISM SINCE 1885 161 

hope of detaching their kith and kin, the Croats and Slovenes, 
from Austria, firmly opposed all attempts at bullying or 
bargaining from Vienna. But the stolid Tartar strain in the 
Bulgars' nature afforded some hope of rallying them, under 
their Coburg prince, to the side of their Moslem oppressors 
and against their Russian liberators. This done, Serbia alone 
barred the way to the formation of a Teutonic-Magyar- 
Turanian League, extending from the North Sea to the 
Persian Gulf. For such a purpose Hohenzollern and Haps- 
burg might well clasp hands and consort with the butchers of 
the Balkan Christians. That this Eastern expansion would 
crush Balkan Nationalism was nothing to the leaders of 
thought and action in the Central Empires; for their concep- 
tion of things had wholly changed since the time when Bis- 
marck and Deak achieved the triumph of that principle for 
the German and the Magyar. 

Let us, then, review the events which transformed Bis- 
marck's Austro- German alliance of 1879 (an essentially 
defensive compact) into an aggressive league aiming at the 
domination of the land hemisphere. The determining event 
was the accession of Kaiser Wilhelm II to the German throne 
in 1888. Inheriting a powerful and prosperous domain, 
protected by an invincible army and unassailable alliances, he 
nevertheless declared in his first proclamation that he would 
ever be responsible for the glory and honor of his army. To 
this was added keen solicitude for naval and colonial expan- 
sion, as appeared in his very profitable bargain with Lord 
SaHsbury in 1890 for the cession of some untenable claims 
over Zanzibar against the acquisition of that valuable naval 
base, Heligoland. But the fact that he bargained anything 
away in East Africa angered the more eager of the German 
patriots, who sought to prevent a recurrence of such a humilia- 
tion by founding a kind of watchdog Society in 1891, which, 
three years later, became the Pangerman League. Claiming 



i62 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

that the German Empire must become a World-Empire, it 
set forth the following ideal: "Above the interests of the 
State should be those of the Nation. Even more sacred than 
love of the Fatherland should be love of the Motherland." 
It soon appeared that the nation was the totality of all 
German-speaking peoples, and the Motherland was the area 
(geographically vague but mentally stimulating) which 
would bring all these peoples into the Teutonic fellowship. 
The Germans of Austria, Switzerland, and the Baltic prov- 
inces of Russia (though the last were but a small minority 
among the Letts and Esthonians) were all to be swept into 
the Motherland's arms, which would finally close around 
Dutch, Flemings, and Scandinavians. The day of little 
States and little peoples was over; for they lived a narrow 
existence, oppressed by fear of vigorous neighbors. Let 
them, therefore, merge their miserable lives in that of the 
Teutonic Superman. Such was the Pangerman propa- 
ganda, directed by a friend of the Kaiser, Dr. Hasse. It 
soon gained an immense vogue; and around the League 
clustered several organizations, chief among them the Navy 
League. 

The generation which grew up during the years of Konig- 
gratz and Sedan (William II's generation) was in the mood 
to regard even those triumphs as precursors to others of 
world-wide import. Merely by skilful carpet-bagging and 
diplomatic hustling, Bismarck and agents like Peters, Nachti- 
gall, and Liidertiz had secured a considerable colonial Empire; 
and if that were gained by craft, what might not be the 
outcome of a well-prepared effort of the whole German 
nation? After the surrender of Paris in January, 187 1, 
Bismarck called his people " the male principle, the fructify- 
ing principle" of Europe; while the Celts and Slavs repre- 
sented the female sex. As for the English, they were con- 
temptible hucksters, envious of the brave Germans but 



NATIONALISM SINCE 1885 163 

afraid to fight them.^ Such was the doctrine taught to young 
Germany in and after 187 1. To it Treitschke merely added 
an academic veneer. Viewing history from the standpoint 
of a patriotic pamphleteer, he excited the youth of Germany 
by sentences such as these: ''To tell the truth, the Slav 
seems to us a born slave"; ^ or again: "What nation will 
impose its will on the other enfeebled and decadent peoples? 
Will it not be Germany's mission to ensure the peace of the 
world? Russia, that immense Colossus with feet of clay, 
will be absorbed in its domestic and economic difficulties. 
England, stronger in appearance than in reality, will doubt- 
less see her colonies break loose and exhaust themselves 
in fruitless struggles. France, given over to internal dis- 
sensions and the strife of parties, will sink into hopeless 
decadence. As to Italy, she will have her work cut out to 
ensure a crust to her children. The future belongs to Ger- 
many, to which Austria will attach herself if she wishes 
to survive." With a few honorable exceptions the teachers 
at the German Universities adopted this tone, and thus 
nursed the feeling of national pride which the parade ground 
brought to lush maturity. 

Along with this, however, there grew up a passion to 
excel, to push through every task to thorough completion. 
An English correspondent long in Germany has described 
it by their word Drang — driving force, or the resolve to 
make your will prevail.^ It is a formidable force in all de- 
partments of life, and contrasts sharply with the easy good 
nature and weak tolerance of bad work far too prevalent 
among us. In this respect we need to copy the Germans 
and regain that passion for thoroughness which used to be 

^Bismarck: some secret Pages of his History, I, 500, 526; Bismarck in 
the Franco-German War, I, 277, II, 8, 19, 333, 345 (note). 
2 Treitschke, Germany, France, Russia, and Islam (Eng. edit.), p. 17. 
' C. Tower, Changing Germany, p. 255. 



i64 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

ours, but which has vanished of late under the influence of 
pleasure, sport, or the worship of the eight-hours' day. It 
is significant that the German phrase Alles in Ordnung, 
which corresponds to our "All right," conveys a guarantee 
that all is right. Whereas our phrase "All right" has come 
to mean: "Now, don't bother: I've done all I mean to 
do." This is the spirit which we must drive from our Uni- 
versities and schools, our workshops and public offices. We 
need a new sense of the dignity of work such as Thomas 
Carlyle hammered into his generation — a healthy public 
opinion which will be stronger than official etiquette, stronger 
than red tape, stronger even than Trade Union regulations. 
In this respect Germany has much to teach us regarding 
her matchless power of organization; and at bottom that 
means power of hard work and clear thinking. In the fierce 
competition of the modern world (a competition which will be 
fiercer than ever after the war) no nation is sure of holding 
its own unless it puts forth its utmost powers, directs them 
wisely, and minimizes the friction between Capital and 
Labor. 
I To return to Germany: the intense devotion of her people, 

fostered in the schools and Universities, has permeated all 
parts of the national life; and it must be remembered that 
that feehng, with its counterpart, contempt for other peoples, 
is based on a not unnatural belief in the primacy of Germans 
in all important spheres. Thus a new tone has permeated 
the German people during the reign of Wilhelm II. It has 
also profoundly affected their settlers in other lands, who, 
under the influence of patriotic clubs, have tended to form 
garrisons for the Empire, ready, when called upon, to take 
action against the communities out of which they have 
made their money. No harm would have resulted from 
this fanatical Teutonism if the Kaiser and his paladins had 
been wise and prudent. But startling results followed when 



NATIONALISM SINCE 1885 165 

he, they and the leading professors and journalists sought 
to outcrow each other in praise of Germania. Sheer political 
vertigo was the outcome, especially since 1896, when Wilhelm 
proclaimed Welpolitik as the goal of her efforts. The Panger- 
man League first enunciated the programme in 1894. Not 
to be outdone, the Kaiser adopted it at the twenty-fifth 
anniversary of the proclamation of the Empire (January 21, 
1896). 
In other matters the League has pushed him on. In 

1895 it urged the acquisition of a good naval base in China; 
the mailed fist in 1897 descended upon Eaao-Chao, after 
the opportune murder of two German missionaries. In 

1896 the League earmarked Asia Minor as a fit sphere for 
economic penetration by the Germans. Again after an in- 
terval of two years, the Kaiser proceeded to Constantinople 
and Damascus, making at the tomb of Saladin his promise 
ever to champion the Moslem-World. In 1896-7 the Panger- 
man and Navy Leagues began a systematic agitation in 
favor of a great navy. The Kaiser responded by appoint- 
ing Admiral von Tirpitz to the Admiralty, and an expansion- 
ist, Count (now Prince) von Blilow, to the Foreign Office; 
while the Navy Bill of 1898 ushered in the long series of 
measures for the systematic and sustained increase of the 
German marine. Certain acts of the Kaiser, such as his 
proclamation as to WeltpoUtik, bear the impress of his per- 
sonaHty, which loves to seize a great occasion for the utter- 
ance of a sonorous and telling phrase. But in the main it 
seems that he has been pushed on by eager and ambitious 
patriots, who, after gaining the ear of a morbidly sensitive 
pubHc, have reproached him for timidity whenever he has 
sought to steady the pace. 

It is worthy of note that he has given them their head 
on occasions when he deemed Germany to be well prepared 
for war. Such occasions were the years succeeding the 



i66 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

opening of the Kiel Canal in 1895; the completion of the 
first instalment of the new navy in 1905 (which coincided 
with Russia's defeats in the Far East) ; the opportunity which 
offered for supporting Austria's forward move of October, 
1908, in the Near East; and the completion of the enlarged 
Kiel Canal in June, 19 14 (which coincided with singular 
diflSculties for the Entente Powers and a unique state of 
military preparation in Germany). On other occasions he 
has often held in the Pangermans despite their champing 
the bit and pawing the air. But again, as if to relieve his 
pent-up feelings, he has uttered words that struck like a spur: 
"Our future lies on the water" — "The trident must pass 
into our hands"— "We are the salt of the earth"— "The 
German nation alone has been called upon to defend, cul- 
tivate, and develop great ideas" — "Our German nation shall 
be the rock of granite on which the Almighty will finish his 
work of civilizing the world. Then shall be fulfilled the words 
of the poet: ' German character shall save the world. ' " The 
ruler who uttered these words, and tried to live up to them, 
must bear a heavy share of responsibility for the growth of 
an overweening Chauvinism. The collective impulse, which 
up to 1870 had been a healthy endeavor to achieve national 
union, has under Kaiser Wilhelm II been degraded into an 
aggressive Nationalism utterly callous of the claims of other 
peoples. 

Rash in word but prudent in deed, Wilhelm kept a tight 
curb on his high-spirited charger until a clear field was before 
him; and in this respect he may count as the new Machiavel. 
During the Boer War of 1 899-1 902 he turned the furiously 
Anglophobe passions of his subjects into a practical channel 
by carrying through an immense naval programme; and in 
the spring of 1905, when Russia's miHtary power tottered 
under the blows of Japan, he embarked on the Moroccan 
policy which the Leagues had pressed on him long before. 



NATIONALISM SINCE 1885 167 

Meanwhile his Chancellor, Biilow, had secured the passing 
of the Tariff Laws of 1902 for the protection of agriculture 
so that the Germany of the future might not depend too 
largely on foreign foodstuffs. A further aim of the Kaiser 
and Chancellor was to stimulate tillage of the soil so as to 
maintain a healthy balance between industry and agricul- 
ture, as was summed up in the phrase, "Agriculture must 
provide soldiers and industry pay for them." ^ 

Thus was built up a pohty no less prosperous in peace 
than well prepared for war; and the outcome of this material 
preparedness and national confidence was seen in the rebuffs 
dealt to France in the Moroccan affair of 1905-6. Appre- 
hension of Germany had prompted the Anglo-French En- 
tente of 1904, and in 1907 came that between England and 
Russia, which was clinched by the recent declarations of 
Germany at the Hague Conference, that she would neither 
lessen her armaments nor submit disputes to arbitration. 
The Ententes, though merely conditional agreements far 
removed from definite alliances, ought to have warned the 
German people of the need of lowering its tone. In normal 
conditions a nation would regard the aHenation of an old 
friend, like Russia, and her drawing towards other States 
for protection, as a sign that its conduct had been unduly 
provocative, and that bluster must give way to conciliation. 
But this is not the way of champions of Drang. Their aim 
being to carry matters with a high hand, they interpret all 
signs of distrust as a challenge to their honor. Newly awak- 
ened Nationalism (and that of Germany dates from 1870) 
has always displayed the morbid sensitiveness of youth, and 
has given out that the Entente is contriving a villainous plot 
to "encircle" Germany and Austria with a view to bring- 
ing about their isolation and destruction. 

Let us examine this charge in the light of facts. They are 
1 Biilow, Imperial Germany y pp. 209-11. 



i68 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

as follows: The Central Empires had a close alliance with 
Italy and a personal compact with the King of Roumania, 
a member of the Swabian branch of the House of Hohen- 
zoUern. A German prince reigned over Bulgaria, the Kaiser's 
sister had married the Crown Prince of Greece, and the Sultan 
of Turkey was notoriously a satrap of Berlin. Consequently, 
the "encircling" of a block of territory, which extended from 
the North Sea to the Tyrrhene and -^gean, could scarcely 
be taken seriously by those who knew the facts of the case. 
But by dint of much noise and skilful suppression of facts, the 
Germans, and not a few Englishmen, were led to regard the 
Central Empires, etc., as pinched in by wily and aggressive 
foes under the direction of the arch-plotter. King Edward 
VII. The theory of "encircling" proved to be especially 
serviceable in dulling the opposition of German Socialists 
to the successive Army and Navy Bills. Unacquainted with 
military history, they failed to realize the enormous advan- 
tage of the central position in warfare; and the authorities, 
who every year increased that advantage by constructing 
strategic railways to the western and eastern frontiers, ceased 
not to alarm their subjects as to the terrible might of the 
Eastern Colossus, the quenchless thirst of Frenchmen for a 
war of revenge, and the malignant jealousy of England. 

That the German Government was not actuated by fear 
of Russia or France is obvious from its policy. At the Hague 
Conference of 1907, as we have seen, it rejected all proposals 
for arbitration and limitation of armaments; at the close of 
1908 the Reichstag passed Bills for the Germanizing of 
Alsace-Lorrainers, the Poles of Posen, and the Danes of 
North Schleswig. At the same time Germany supported 
her ally, Austria, in her annexation of Bosnia; and in March, 
1909, a threatening note from Berlin to Petrograd led the 
Tsar to withdraw his opposition to that step. Further, the 
vigorous efforts of Teutonic diplomacy to recover the ground 



NATIONALISM SINCE 1885 169 

at first lost at Constantinople in the Young Turk Revolution 
of 1908 were completely successful. This forceful policy 
upheld the arms of Austria-Hungary, browbeat Russia, and 
encouraged the Young Turks to proceed with the "Ottoman- 
izing" of their Christian subjects.^ 

In no quarter did the Teutonic idea work more effectively 
than in Austria-Hungary. In its early stages the Panger- 
man movement seemed to threaten the disruption of the 
Dual Monarchy, whose Germanic subjects, hard pressed by 
Slavs and Magyars, seemed likely to break away from the 
crumbhng heritage of the Hapsburgs and form a southern 
annexe of the HohenzoUern Empire. But, however much 
the Pangermans played with the notion, the statesmen of 
Berlin finally discouraged it as tending to form a diffuse 
realm in which Prussian influence would be lost.^ They 
deemed it better to favor the German elements in Austria 
and support that Empire in the difficult enterprise of domi- 
nating the Balkans. In 1906 the Archduke Ferdinand and 
the new Foreign Minister, Aehrenthal, inaugurated a spirited 
foreign poHcy which succeeded in quieting, or crushing, 
racial strifes within the Empire. The revival of the prestige 
of the Dual Monarchy was assisted by the passionate Nation- 
aUsm of the Magyars, which at times amounted almost to 
frenzy. Excited by the celebrations of the thousandth 
anniversary of their organized national life in 1896, Hun- 
garian patriots had resolved to ride roughshod over their 
Slavonic and Roumanian subjects; and their exuberant 
patriotism reduced parliamentary elections and procedure 

^ Nationalism and War in the Near East, by " Diplomatist," chs. Ill, IV. 

2 G. Weil, Le Pangermanisme en Autriche, chs. 7, 8. But the revelations 
of Mr. Wickham Steed (Nineteenth Century, Feb., 1916) as to the alleged 
bargain between Kaiser Wilhelm and the Archduke Franz Ferdinand 
in June, 1914, seem to show that the former may then have revived the 
older Pangerman scheme. 



170 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

to the level of a farce; while their sense of justice received 
startling illustration in incidents such as that of the Agram 
trial. -^ Nevertheless this crude Nationalism succeeded for 
the time; and, joining hands with the boisterous anti-Semites 
of Vienna and the expansionists of Berlin, it prepared to 
stride southwards to conquest over the hated Serbs. 

Austro-Hungarian Chauvinism secured its first triumph 
in the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in October, 
1908. The significance of this event was doubled by its coin- 
cidence with the assumption of the title "Tsar of the Bul- 
garians" by Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria immediately after 
a visit to the Hapsburg Court. Half Austrian by upbringing, 
and largely Magyar by sympathy and territorial connections, 
that wily schemer by his title now laid claim to lordship 
over the large Bulgar population of Macedonia; and Austria's 
longings for Salonica being notorious, it was clear that the 
Dual Monarchy and her satrap were contemplating an even- 
tual partition of that troublous province. In view of the 
decline of Russia's prestige in the Near East since her dis- 
astrous adventures in the Far East, the Central Empires 
and their pro-consuls at Sofia and Bukarest had in their 
hands the future of the Balkan Peninsula. 

These brilliant successes, I repeat, rehabilitated the pres- 
tige of Austria, stilled her racial disputes, and reduced the 
Serbs and their Croat cousins to despair. The details of the 
compromise framed by the Pangermans and the Dual Mon- 
archy are, of course, not known; but the success of Austria's 
forward and Teutonic policy, as contrasted with the barren 
parliamentary and racial strifes of the earlier period, opened 
up a new and promising future, in which it seemed that 
Austria-Hungary would be predominantly German-Magyar 
and would control the Balkans, thus forming an essential 

1 See Dr. Seton-Watson's works, Corruption and Reform in Hungary, 
Racial Problems in Hungary , etc. 



NATIONALISM SINCE 1885 171 

link in the future Zollverein stretching from the North Sea 
to the Bosphorus, the Persian Gulf, and the Red Sea. As 
this scheme developed, it naturally aroused alarm in Russia 
and among the Mediterranean Powers. The ItaHans began 
to sheer off from the Triple Alliance as its Oriental ambitions 
developed; and fear of Austro-German aggressions grouped 
Great Britain, France, and Russia more closely together. 
The Franco-German agreement of 1909 respecting Morocco 
did not, and could not, solve that question; while the Russo- 
German compact arrived at late in 1910 failed to compose 
their rivalries in the Near East. 

This brief survey will suffice to explain not only the political 
tension prevalent throughout Europe but also the growth 
of a neurotic Nationalism in Germany. Not satisfied with 
her supremacy in Europe, she prepared to achieve world- 
dominance; and the mifitary weakness of Russia, together 
with the absorption of France and England in parliamentary 
disputes, furthered her schemes. The Western Powers 
sought to solve social questions by concessions and bargains; 
Germany prepared to solve them by distracting the attention 
of the masses to national issues. Prince Biilow has frankly 
avowed that intention. He states that the successive Army 
and Navy Bills were designed to help on Germany's world- 
poHcy, and, in order to secure a majority in the Reichstag, 
the middle classes and as many as possible of the working 
classes had to be won over. He admits that, notwithstanding 
all the efforts put forth against the Social Democrats, their 
votes at the polls steadily mounted, though the number of 
seats gained curiously varied. 

Votes polled. Seats gained. 

1898. . .2,107,000 56 

1903, . .3,011,000 81 

1907- ••3,539,000 43 

1912. . .4,250,000 no 



172 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

Their losses of seats in 1907 were due to speeches, explana- 
tions, and "the direction of the electoral compaign." ^ As 
to the Socialist gains of 191 2, Biilow says nothing, because 
they were due to the spirited protests of that party against 
Weltpolitik. On the general question of combating the Social- 
ists, he says: "We must accustom them to the idea of the 
State. . . . The idea of the nation must again and again 
be emphasized by dealing with national problems, so that 
this idea may continue to move, unite, and separate the par- 
ties. Nothing has a more discouraging, paralyzing, and de- 
pressing effect on a clever, enterprising, and highly developed 
nation such as the Germans than a monotonous, dull policy, 
which, for fear of an ensuing fight, avoids rousing passions by. 
strong action.'' Biilow also advised the Government to fight 
Social Democracy by "a great and comprehensive national 
policy." By this he declares that he meant the Germanizing 
of all the races within the Empire, especially the Poles, 
whose political incompetence had subjected them to the 
superior organization of Prussia. But he deprecated the con- 
quest of neighboring territories.^ 

Such a limitation of Germany's expansive power displeased 
German Chauvinists, who exercised greater pressure on Bil- 
low's successor, Bethmann-HoUweg (1909- ). The Foreign 
Assistant Secretary, Kiderlen-Waechter, favored the Agadir 
coup of July, 191 1, which is known to have been contrived 
by the Navy and other patriotic Leagues. First, they pointed 
out in the Press the urgent need of German expansion in 
Morocco; and then the two Ministers declared that they 
must try to keep pace with public opinion. Thus the mutu- 
ally exciting influences of the Leagues and the Adminis- 
tration worked up a furious national feeling which formed the 

1 Biilow, Imperial Germany, pp. 158-168. The total number of dep- 
uties is 397. 

2 Ihid., pp. 157-204, 239-245. 



NATIONALISM SINCE 1885 173 

chief danger of the situation. The dispute at Agadir in itself 
was trivial, as was afterwards admitted by German patriots. 
But their masterful tone nearly brought about a general 
war. Probably this was their aim; for great was their wrath 
when the Kaiser and his Ministry finally patched up the 
Morocco dispute by the compact of November 4, 191 1, with 
France, gaining about 100,000 square miles of French Con- 
goland at the price of their acquiescence in French supremacy 
in Morocco. The rage of German Chauvinists against the 
Kaiser for this profitable though inglorious bargain burst 
out in downright insults, Die Post calling him ce poltron 
miserable} 

In a short time the Germans saw that they had exag- 
gerated the importance of the Moroccan affair. In 191 2 
that astute publicist, MaximiHan Harden, said: "As for 
the Morocco escapade, God knows the colonial fever was 
there expended for nothing. It was simply an affair of 
prestige, — national prestige, personal prestige. Germany 
had no real interests in Morocco." The Pangerman cham- 
pion. Count Reventlow, also blamed that adventure as ill- 
judged because it offended both England and France. Never- 
theless the Pangermans stirred up indignation against that 
"failure" in order to effect and increase the already formid- 
able armaments. The expenditure on the army was increased 
by £6,450,000, despite the incidence of a severe financial 
crisis in 191 1. A prominent German newspaper stated that a 

^ Dr. Rohrbach {Der deutsche Gedanke in der Welt, p. 216) declared that 
Germany took the wrong turn about Morocco, which was not a vital 
affair; besides the Hedjaz Railway, the Kiel-North Sea Canal and the 
forts at Heligoland were not then in readiness. In the future, too, the 
stake must be a greater one than a strip of Moroccan coast. He con- 
cludes: "We are now (191 2) in a position to launch out boldly." Rohr- 
bach is a champion of the Bagdad and other Levantine schemes, which 
will probably prove to be the chief cause of the present war. Certainly 
they interested Austria and Turkey, which Morocco never did. 



174 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

great war would be "perhaps delayed, but not averted, if 
German armaments are not of a nature to intimidate every 
adversary into beating a retreat." That is the essential 
thought at the bottom of German Nationalism of the Sturm 
und Drang type.-^ 

The formation of the Balkan League and its successful 
attack upon Turkey in the autumn of 191 2 caused great 
concern in Germany and Austria, where the triumph of the 
crescent had been taken for granted. At once the Central 
Empires declared the new League to be a mere tool of Russia; 
whereas it was certainly the outcome of the grinding pressure 
of the Young Turks on all their Christian subjects. M. Sazon- 
off, the Russian Foreign Minister, at first discouraged the 
Leaguers and advised them to come to terms with Turkey.^ 
As is well known, after the conclusion of a Balkan peace in 
London in the spring of 1913, the Christian States fell out, 
and, probably under the impulse of Austria, the Bulgar troops 
in June, 1913, perfidiously attacked the Greeks and Serbs, 
only to suffer condign punishment. Finally, the Treaty of 
Bukarest (largely decided by the two Central Empires) 
imposed the present unsatisfactory frontiers and left all the 
races of the Peninsula at feud (August, 1913). Their friction 
kindled the spark which set Europe in a blaze in August, 
1914.3 

1 Bourdon, The German Enigma, pp. 158, 180, 198. Prof. Van VoUen- 
hoven (yVar Obviated by an International Police, 19 10, p. 7) calls them 
"force-monomaniacs." They were long laughed at in Germany, but 
carried the day in July, 1914. 

2 For proofs see I. E. Gueshoff, The Balkan League (Eng. transl), 

pp. 9-45. 

3 Ibid., pp. 71-94. As to Austria's responsibility for the war of 1913 
(not yet fully proven) see " Balkanicus," The Aspirations of Bulgaria 
(1915), pp. 132-42. Very significant were the remarks of the Austrian 
Reichspost (the organ of the Archduke Ferdinand): "The results of the 
Balkan War (of 1913) have no disagreeable features for the Austro- 



NATIONALISM SINCE 1885 I7S 

Here again, then, the principle of Nationality, for which 
Gladstone pleaded and Stambuloff struggled, has undergone 
dire degradation. Promising to sort out the Balkan peoples 
according to ethnic afl&nities, it has of late aroused their 
baser passions and lent itself to intriguers who have ruined 
their people and deluged the Peninsula with blood. The 
part recently played by Bulgaria completes the career of 
infamy on which she entered in June, 19 13. Owing all that 
she is to the principle of Slav Nationality and to the powerful 
aid of Russia, she has acted as Judas both to the principle 
and to her champion. In order to stab Serbia in the back 
she has helped her age-long oppressors, the Turks, and those 
more recent and more formidable enemies of Balkan in- 
dependence, the Germanic Empires. 

To all who were not blinded by revenge or blinkered by 
mere peasant-cunning, it ought to have been clear that the 
Austro-German intrigues with the Sublime Porte for pre- 
dominance in the Near East involved the suppression of 
all the free races which lay in their path; that, consequently, 
the subjection of Serbia in the present war would but prelude 
the subjection of Bulgaria. The Teutonic-Turanian policy, 
summed up in the Bagdad Railway scheme, is based on 
military and trading considerations, in which Belgrade and 
Sofia figure merely as stages on the route from Berlin to 
Bagdad and the Persian Gulf. What would be the lot of 
Turkey in case of the triumph of the new imperial commer- 
cialism is far from clear. That the lot of Bulgaria, Serbia, 
and probably of Roumania and Greece, would be one of 
political impotence, no student of German developments can 
harbor a doubt. Such a finale to the present war would 
imply the extinction of Serbia and the reversal of all that 
Roumans, Greeks, Bulgars have achieved with the help of 

Hungarian Monarchy or for the German nation. The last Balkan War 
was more disastrous for Panslavism than the first one was for Turkey." 



176 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

Byron, Canning, and Gladstone; of Napoleon III and Gam- 
betta; of Diebitsch and Skobeloff. The results of a century 
of national striving would be swept away in order that the 
Teutons might force their way to the East. It is in face of 
such an issue that Greece, the first-born of Europe's children, 
vacillates, while Bulgaria, the youngest of the family, has 
foully betrayed the Slavonic national cause to which she 
owes her very existence. 

Such are the crucial developments of Nationalism since 
the year 1885. The revival of racial feuds in the Balkans 
at that time ensured the triumph of the barbarous policy 
of Abdul Hamid, which continued to desolate Macedonia 
and Armenia until 1908. The accession of Wilhelm II in 
1888 inaugurated an era of aggressive Nationalism in Ger- 
many and, somewhat later, in Austria, the result being 
Pangermanism and its varied efforts which culminated in 
July, 1914. After the accession of the Tsar Nicholas II in 
1894 the diversion of Russia's energies towards the Far 
East emasculated the Panslav movement, so powerful under 
his predecessors; and Slavonic sentiment retained its vitality 
chiefly among the Serbs and other South Slavs, who could 
not effect much. The growth of Pangermanism and its 
alliance with the Turks and the Panislam movement has 
proved to be the chief determining factor in recent history. 
That these national movements have developed immense 
energies in their respective peoples admits of no doubt; 
but the events of 1914-5 form the supreme test as to the 
worth of the new Nationalism. 



LECTURE X 

INTERNATIONALISM 

"Si une guerre menace d'eclater, c'est un devoir de la classe 
ouvriere dans les pays concernes, c'est un devoir pour leurs repre- 
sentants dans les Parlements, avec I'aide du bureau international, 
force d'action et de co-ordination, de faire tons leurs efforts pour 
empecher la guerre. . . ." — Resolution of the Congress of I'lnter- 
nationale at Stuttgart, August, 1907. 

Periods of war and peace succeed each other with a per- 
sistence which must arouse the curiosity of every well-wisher 
of mankind. Unless we accept Bemhardi's view (now so 
popular in Germany) that war is a necessary school of the 
manly virtues, its periodicity is a distressing symptom. 
Certainly, those who believe that human progress is advanced 
more by peace will continue to inquire whether means of 
avoiding conflicts may not be discovered and successfully 
applied. I will try here to review this question in the light 
of the teachings of history. 

Inquiries of this kind have been especially numerous at 
the end of long and devastating campaigns; and it is not 
too much to say that efforts in favor of peace and legality 
have been in proportion to the horrors of warfare. 

This truth is obvious in the case of the founder of Inter- 
national Law, Hugo van Groot (Grotius). Living amidst 
the atrocities that disgraced the Wars of Religion, that 
Dutch scholar pondered over the utter lawlessness that had 
of late afflicted mankind. In words that might now be written 
by a Belgian, Pole, or Serb, Grotius in 1625 thus set forth 
his reason for inculcating the principles of public right: 

177 



178 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

"I saw prevailing throughout the Christian world a licence 
in making war of which even barbarous nations would have 
been ashamed, recourse being had to arms for slight reason 
or no reason; and, when arms were once taken up, all rever- 
ence for divine and human law was then thrown away, just 
as if men were henceforth authorized to commit all crimes 
without restraint." ^ The subsequent atrocities of the Thirty 
Years' War emphasized the need for some guiding and re- 
straining authority; and hence by degrees there grew up a 
code of public law, the chief contributors to which (like the 
German Pufendorf in 1661) were those who had experienced 
the terrors of lawlessness. In 1693, during our campaigns 
against Louis XIV, the Quaker, William Penn, set forth 
proposals for the preservation of peace; and in 1713, at 
the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, the French 
priest, Charles de St. Pierre, drew up a scheme which I shall 
notice presently. As the din of arms filled the greater part 
of the eighteenth century, thinkers occupied themselves 
with the problems of war and peace. Voltaire, Montesquieu, 
and Rousseau in France;^ Adam Smith and the younger 
Pitt in England; Kant and Lessing in Germany, all voiced 
the pacific aspirations of the age. The French Economistes 
and Adam Smith advocated principles which would have 
transformed the Continental States into friendly economic 
units among a comity of nations. 
Especially noteworthy were the efforts of German thinkers 

^ Quoted by Dr. T. J. Lawrence, The Principles of International Law, 
p. 42. I omit Henri IV's peace project as unimportant. 

2 Again it is worth noting that the books which dealt heavy blows at 
the warHke ambitions and false aims of the ancien regime appeared at 
or near the end of wars, e. g. Les Lettres persanes (1721), L'Esprit des 
Lois (1748), UEncyclopidie (1751-65), Le Contrat social (1762), Le 
Systeme de la Nature (1770). As I have shown in my Life of Pitt (I, 
p. 340), WiUiam Pulteney in 1786 proposed to Pitt a plan of arbitration, 
and Pitt's treaty with France of that year was an effort for lasting peace. 



INTERNATIONAIJSM 179 

on behalf of peace and brotherhood. The philosophical 
movement in France found a clear echo across the Rhine, 
where leading men desired to end racial rivalries. Deeming 
patriotism a promoter of strife, they belittled that instinct. 
The genial Lessing wrote: "I have no conception of the 
love of coimtry; and it seems to me at best a heroic failing, 
which I am well content to be without." Indeed he aspired 
to a far higher ideal. In his most perfect play, Nathan der 
Weise (1779), the hero is a Jewish merchant of the time of 
Saladin, who, even in that time of bigotry, disarms racial 
and religious hatreds by the attractive power of goodness. 
Rivalries vanish before the magic of his virtue; and the play 
ends with a spectacle of concord and happiness. Lessing 
took the leading incident of the play from Boccaccio; but 
he transformed the story by investing it with the ethical 
promise of his own time, the Age of Enlightenment. 

Kant enforced similar precepts in his tractate Perpetual 
Peace, published in 1795 shortly after Prussia came to terms 
with France in the Peace of Basel. He proposed as the chief 
step towards peace a Federation of free States. They 
must be Republics, i. e. they must be States endowed with 
really representative institutions — which would rule out all 
forms of Bonapartism with their modern equivalent, Kai- 
serism.^ These free States would form definite compacts 
one with the other, thus laying the foundation for a system 
of International Law, binding on all, and thereby substi- 
tuting the reign of right for merely national aims. Just 
as individuals had by degrees consented to give up something 
of their entire liberty so as to secure order, similarly (he 
urged) it ought to be possible to substitute some measure 
of international control for that extreme ideal of national 
liberty which often led to war. Kant was not very hopeful 

1 Kant, Perpetual Peace (Eng. Transl. by M. Campbell, Smith), 
p. 123. 



i8o NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

on this score. He saw that for nations to give up their natural 
liberty (including the liberty to expand and to make war) 
implied an immense advance in ethical ideas, as is now pain- 
fully obvious. Further, in his Rechtslehre, he stated that 
mankind can arrive at permanent peace "only in a universal 
Union of States, by a process analogous to that through which 
a people becomes a State. Since, however, the too great 
extension of such a State of Nations over vast territories 
must, in the long run, render impossible the government of 
that Union — and therefore the protection of each of its 
members — a multitude of such corporations will again lead 
to a state of war. So that perpetual peace, the final goal of 
international law, as a whole, is really an impracticable 
idea." Nevertheless, he hoped that these political principles 
might approximate towards that end. 

For my part I do not admit that the extension of the area 
of these federating States is an objection to Kant's theory. 
His fear on this topic was, I believe, grounded on the ob- 
jection felt by him, by Rousseau, and by all his contem- 
poraries, to the formation of great realms. They all held 
that civil liberty was incompatible with great States and 
could be attained and retained only in small communities. 
The fear was very natural in times of slow and difficult 
communications. It is groundless now in the days of railways 
and telegraphs; and in that respect we are far more favor- 
ably situated than our forefathers for building up a great 
Union of States. Indeed, it is essential that such a Union 
or Federation should comprise practically all the great States. 
It is not too great an extension, but too partial an extension, 
that is the danger. As we have recently seen, there is no 
security for peace so long as one great nation remains out- 
side the circle of those that desire peace. 

Further, if any great State comes into such a Union with 
the notion of being the leader, that Union will be a sham and 



INTERNATIONALISM i8i 

a delusion. Not until the federating States, one and all, 
put far from them the idea of predominance, will there be 
a reasonable hope of securing fair play, justice, and therefore 
peace. Kant saw this clearly, and therefore stipulated that 
there must be a "universal will determining the rights and 
property of each individual nation"; and this universal 
will (an extension of Rousseau's "general will" of a single 
conmiunity) must take the form of a contract.^ 

Let us look at this question by the light of experience. 
In 1 7 13, at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, 
llAbbe de St. Pierre published a tractate on peace. His chief 
contentions were that Christendom should combine to form 
a federation of States under the lead of France, and proceed, 
as the first of its pacific duties, to turn the Turks out of 
Europe. These proposals sufficed to damn the scheme as a 
device for re-establishing French prestige recently shattered 
by Marlborough. 

Not very dissimilar was a scheme of Napoleon I. During 
his sojourn at St. Helena (which ought to have cured him 
of his notions of world-supremacy) the illustrious exile de- 
scribed his plan of forming the European Association. He 
would have imposed the same system, the same principles 
everywhere, the same Code of Laws, a Supreme Tribunal, 
the same weights and measures, a similar coinage, so that 
Europe would have formed but one people. But it is sig- 
nificant that all these plans were closely connected in 
his mind with the conquest of Russia. That implied in his 
mind the "beginning of security"; and then only could 
the European System be founded. Thereafter he would 
have his Congress to settle Europe; also his Holy Al- 
liance.^ 

1 Kant, App. II, § 2. 

2 Las Cases, Memorial de Ste. Helene (B, 398-400), (August, 1816). 
So, too, he told Count Rambuteau {Memoires, p. 55, Eng. edit.) that his 



i82 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

In much the same spirit the German Chancellor, Beth- 
mann-HoUweg, said to the Reichstag on August 19, 1915: 
"If Europe is to come to peace, it can only be possible by 
the inviolable and strong position of Germany. The English 
policy of the Balance of Power must disappear." These 
words imply that Germany will not accept a position of mere 
equality of power; she must be supreme. The claim is not 
urged with the extravagance that characterized Napoleon's 
final regrets. Nevertheless, the German claim to supremacy 
is absolutely incompatible with the principle of proportion- 
ate equality on which alone a federation of free States can 
be firmly established. Minds of a certain bent cannot con- 
ceive of any other way of imposing order and quiet than that 
of enforcement by some superior Power. Well! It cannot 
be too clearly understood that that way lies war. For, 
sooner or later, your constabulary guardian will develop 
into a drill sergeant; and thence must ensue the rule of force 
and therefore strife. I grant that the drill sergeant theory 
is the simpler; and very many people can understand no 
other way. They cannot see that harmony attained by the 
agreement of all is infinitely preferable to, and more probably 
lasting than, a harmony produced by dread of a superior. 

Let us, however, frankly confess that a union of peoples 
on proportionate terms is diflScult to attain and still more 
difficult to maintain. The French Revolution egregiously 
failed in the international sphere. Though it began with 
the profession of fraternity, yet its practice degenerated 
under the strain of war. Military considerations, backed 
up by national pride, carried the day at Paris; and French 
democracy, even before the rise of Bonaparte, was com- 
mitted to courses directly opposed to the cosmopolitan 
aims of 1789. It was a German thinker who in 1795 pointed 

Empire would be safe only when he was master of all the capitals of 
Europe. 



INTERNATIONALISM 183 

towards peace, while France headed towards wider conquests 
— ^and Bonapartism. 

The efforts of the Tsar Alexander I in and after 1815 to'*) 
promote a Confederation of Europe need not detain us long. \ 
There prevailed then a general desire for peace, one expres- 
sion of which was the founding of the Peace Society in London 
in 1816.^ Whether Alexander had more in view an Associa- 
tion of Peoples on equal terms or a Confederation of States 
more or less under his direction cannot be discussed here. 
Certain it is that, if ever he cherished the lofty views ascribed 
to him in 18 15, they soon vanished; and the promised feder- 
ation of the European peoples became a mere device for 
depriving them of political and civic liberty. The period of 
the Congresses (1818-22) therefore merits the sarcastic cen- 
sure which Sorel applies to International Law, that it was 
known "only through the declamations of publicists and its 
violation by the Governments." It is not surprising that all 
students of that disappointing era should view with reserve 
and suspicion all proposals for World-Tribunals and Inter- 
national Congresses. But the optimist may reply: "Both 
the men and the methods were defective. The men were 
autocrats and were easily turned aside into reactionary 
paths." This is undeniable; and I refuse to believe that, 
because Metternich lured Alexander aside, therefore Con- 
gresses of delegates chosen for the purpose of founding a 
Union of European States need necessarily be held in vain. 
We have nearly a hundred years of experience behind us 
since Aix-la-Chapelle and Verona. I trust that, after the 
present war, we shall have before us principles more definite 
and sound than that of "morality based on bayonets," which 
aptly summarizes the bastard Internationalism of 1818-22. 

1 1 have no space in which to notice the works of Gentz, I'Abbe de 
Pradt, etc. See Pradt's U Europe apres le Congrds, and Alison Phillips' 
Confederation of Empire. 



i84 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

It is, however, instructive to notice the extreme ease with 
which the philanthropic views of the Tsar were perverted; 
and the experience of those years bids us beware of benevo- 
lent doctrinaires no less than wily diplomats. The dreamer 
is as dangerous as his first cousin, the trickster, into whose 
hands he frequently plays. 

More genuine than the federalism of the Tsar Alexander 
were the aims of Mazzini and the Young Europe Movement 
of 1834-5 by which he sought to group together the democrats 
of Italy, France, and Switzerland, as well as other peoples. 
The sporadic movements of 1830 having failed owmg to utter 
lack of concert, Mazzini now sought to co-ordinate them. 
By means of a central advisory body in Switzerland he en- 
deavored to form what he called a "college of intellects," 
which would both incite and guide democrats of various lands. 
But that movement failed, largely because its lofty aims 
appealed only to groups of intellectuals. The generation 
that grew up under Napoleon and his conquerors was too 
exhausted to rise in revolt until the hardships of 1847-8 
reinforced the teachings of idealists. As Lord Acton observed, 
Mazzini's conspiracy was founded not on a grievance but "on 
a doctrine"; ^ and the experiences of 1848 were to show that 
the doctrines must be practical and the grievances intense 
to produce unanimity among peoples only half awakened. 
"Young Europe" virtually collapsed with Mazzini's removal 
to London in 1837; and it is questionable whether the exiles 
who founded " Young Europe," or the fiercer group of Panslav- 
ists that gyrated around Bakunin in Paris in 1847, ^^-d any 
practical influence on the democratic movements of 1848-9. 

The events of those luckless years showed the extreme 
difficulty of Democracy and Nationality working well to- 
gether, and justify the belief that they are in their nature 
opposed. Wherever the fervid nationalists got the upper 
1 Lord Acton, Essays on Liberty, p. 286. 



INTERNATIONALISM 185 

hand, liberty was jealously restricted to the leading race; 
and as a result there prevailed those cries: "Hungary for the 
Hungarians," etc., which brought Nationalism into deserved 
disrepute. In Italy alone were the democrats inspired by 
broader views, thanks to the inspiring influence of Mazzini; 
but at Rome and Venice the foreigner stamped out both 
Nationalism and Democracy, so that by the end of 1849 
the future of the Continent was most dreary. In his essay 
Europe: its Condition (1852) Mazzini pointed out that 
Europe no longer believed in the Papacy, or in dynasties 
or aristocracies. In fact Europe possessed no unity of aim, 
of faith, or of mission. But, he proceeded, a new initiative 
would probably arise out of the question of nationaHties, 
which would destroy the Treaties of Vienna and assort the 
peoples in accord with their desires. "The question of 
nationalities (he wrote), rightly understood, is the alliance 
of the peoples, the balance of powers based on new founda- 
tions, the organization of the work that Europe has to ac- 
complish." At that time such a solution was possible. The 
peoples were not yet at enmity; and they all had an interest 
in striving for more complete self-expression, firstly, by be- 
coming complete political entities instead of remaining di- 
vided fragments; secondly, by solving the social and indus- 
trial problems in a way that was impossible in their then 
fragmentary existence. Alas! the nations did not rearrange 
their political boundaries without strifes that left behind 
rankling hatreds; and in consequence the social and industrial 
problems have gone unsolved. Nationalism asserted itself 
in its cruder form, clothed itself in Militarism, and made the 
Continent a series of self-contained and hostile nations. 

Consequently, the international movement, which con- 
currently struggled for recognition, had little chance of 
success. Its beginnings may be traced in the famous Associa- 
tion called V Internationale, which was started by French 



l86 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

and British workmen in London in 1864. Originating in 
meetings of French working-men visitors to our Exhibition 
of 1862 with our own artisans, it soon had branches in all 
countries; and at its Congresses revolutionary Socialism of the 
most advanced type gained ground. The anarchic section 
got the upper hand in 1869, when Bakunin and his Russian 
and Polish Nihilists joined the Association. Its influence 
on the Paris Commune of 1871 has been disputed, but I 
think on insufficient grounds. M. Hanotaux estimates the 
number of its members in Paris at between 70,000 and 
80,000, and thinks that Bismarck may have encouraged 
the anarchic propaganda of the French Conununists. The 
idea may seem far-fetched; but Bismarck was a past master 
in the art of weakening his enemies; and, on January 27, 
187 1, during an interview with Jules Favre, he alluded to the 
dangerous state of public opinion in Paris on the eve of its 
surrender to the Germans, and gave the following Machia- 
velhan advice: *' Provoke an emeute while you still have an 
army to suppress it with." ^ Favre looked at him with horror, 
for making so bloodthirsty a suggestion. But evidently 
Bismarck knew the state of things in Paris better than Favre, 
who, later on, probably regretted that he did not follow that 
cunning counsel. 

The Internationale played Germany's game admirably 
in completing the ruin of France in the spring of 1871, when 
Lyons and other cities of the Centre and South sought to 
copy Paris and overturn the national Government. In its 
place they sought to erect a system based on the Commune 
as governing unit, with federations to endow these micro- 
cosms with some solidarity. That the Communists should 
have made their bold bid for power while France was still 
writhing under the heel of the Germans sufficiently character- 
ized their movement. It proved that among a fanatical 
^ Busch, Bismarck during the Franco-German War^ II, 265. 



INTERNATIONALISM 187 

minority of ^'Internationals" all claims of country were 
ignored; nay, that the greater the agony of la patrie, the better 
was the opportunity deemed for sweeping away old-world 
notions and imposing a communistic and anti-national form 
of society. Of course the national view prevailed, but after 
a terrible struggle, which brought France to the verge of dis- 
solution. The violence of the petroleuses in Paris and other 
signs of political lunacy discredited the cause; and in 1872 
the Internationale split into two factions. The more moder- 
ate, led by Marx, outvoted the desperadoes of Bakunin; but 
the latter found a considerable following among the artisans 
of France, and, still more, of Spain and Italy. Worsted at 
their own game of violence, the Nihilists gradually declined 
in numbers; but the Russian branch of the sect effected the 
murder of the reforming Tsar, Alexander II, and thus threw 
Russia into the arms of reaction. 

The chief significance of these facts lies in the reckless unwis- 
dom of the champions of Internationalism and their utter 
disregard of the claims of country, even after a most dis- 
astrous war; but it is of prime importance to observe that 
anarchic and anti-national theories had a far greater hold 
on the Slav and Latin peoples than on the Germans. The 
Karl Marx party dominant in German Sociahsm, though 
advanced in its opinions, was not anarchic. Indeed, Marx 
often behaved like a German patriot. On July 20, 1870, 
just before the Franco-German War, he wrote to another 
Socialist, Engels, that he hoped the French would be well 
thrashed; then the centre of the Internationale would be in 
Germany. He was no less hostile to the French Republic. 
On the contrary, Bakunin did his best to help the young 
French democracy against the Germans.^ Thus, the Teutonic 
Socialist tended towards Nationalism, the French and Rus- 

1 James Guillaume, Karl Marx pangermaniste, et V Association Inter' 
naiionale (Paris, Colin, 1915), pp. 85, loi. 



i88 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

sians towards Internationalism; the fractions that now and 
again terrorized the Latin and Russian peoples were the de- 
clared enemies, not only of those Governments, but of all 
government. 

This divergence between the Teutonic peoples on the one 
hand and the Latin and Slav peoples on the other suggests 
that there must be a fundamental difference of tempera- 
ment and outlook. In the Latin and Slav peoples the sense 
of the ideal is certainly stronger ; and the notion of a common 
law and civilization has taken deeper root. Consequently, 
on every important question the authority of the community 
tends to prevail — a, heritage bequeathed in rich measure by 
Ancient Rome to the Romance peoples. The Slav peoples 
are characterized by similar notions, and by an even stronger 
vein of sentiment. Consequently a movement that aims at 
far-reaching changes, such as the sovereignty of the commu- 
nity or of the human race at large over the individual, has a 
greater chance of success among them than elsewhere. In 
fact, far-reaching social revolutions have generally origi- 
nated with them. On the other hand the Germanic, Anglo- 
Saxon, and Scandinavian peoples are remarkable for attach- 
ment to the home and to individual liberty. Luther and 
Cromwell are their characteristic products; Rousseau and 
Mazzini those of the Latin peoples. Accordingly, it seems 
probable that Internationalism will develop first among the 
latter, and will be retarded by the individualism of the former. 

However, in 1871 the movement was wrecked mainly by 
the extravagant ardor of its disciples. Mrs. Browning has 
sung of the proneness of the French of her day to hurry to 
extremes: — 

"these too fiery and impatient souls, 
They threaten conflagration to the world, 
And rush with most unscrupulous logic on 
Impossible practice." 



INTERNATIONALISM 189 

Never was this defect more flagrant than in the spring of 
1 87 1. It was due to the Communists that the French Re- 
public became for a time a prey to reaction. In Germany, 
on the contrary, the anarchist movement never was serious; 
and the majority of the SociaHsts in the long run tended 
to express not much more than the discontent naturally 
aroused by the autocratic proceedings of the present Kaiser. 
Even the Marxian Socialists have diminished in Germany, 
where, indeed, the Socialists are often little more than up- 
holders of individual Uberty. During the first seven or 
eight years of his reign WiUiam II sought to appease 
them by measures known as State Socialism: but in 
and after 1895 he found that his imperial palliatives were 
not appreciated, and in 1896 he threw himself into Weltpo- 
litik. 

As we have seen, this commercial Imperialism gained 
ground rapidly; and, what is most remarkable, it won over 
very many German Socialists. The reasons for their defec- 
tion are still far from clear; but one cause, perhaps the funda- 
mental cause, has been pointed out by a Belgian, M. Emile 
Royer. He, the Socialist deputy for Tournay, states that 
Marxism had devoted itself almost exclusively to the national 
side of social questions, thereby losing sight of the wider 
and humanitarian issues which nerved the Socialists of 1848.^ 
This explanation goes far to solve the riddle; for since the 
year 1888 the German Government has done much for the 
workmen, and recently has tried to convince them of the need 
of colonies and better outlets to the sea. To men who looked 
chiefly to the loaves and fishes the Kaiser's policy presented 
irresistible attractions. For instance, the Pangerman pro- 
gramme, which he patronized, has aimed at the inclusion of 
Belgium and Holland in a Greater Germany — to which a 

^ Independance beige, Feb. 17, 1915; quoted by J. Destr6e, Les Soci- 
alistes el la Guerre europeenne, p. 20. 



190 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

Central ZoUverein would be the convenient prelude; and this 
programme has immensely furthered the growth of imperial 
and Chauvinistic ideas among the Bavarians. Shedding 
their former separatist notions, they have embraced the new 
programme with ardor, because, as their King recently 
stated, it promises to give to South German trade its natural 
outlets to the sea, Rotterdam and Antwerp. Similarly in 
the great commercial centres, very many Socialists have 
favored the imperial policy of expansion. 

Their conduct has dealt a heavy blow to the international 
cause. Most of the fathers of Socialism believed in Free 
Trade between nations as a means of furthering friendly 
intercourse and lessening the chances of war. But Bis- 
marck's policy of protecting home industries (supplemented 
by that of Biilow respecting agriculture) had very important 
results, far beyond the limits of commerce and agriculture. 
For there were two alternatives before Germany; either 
to continue in the path of Free Trade, which implies peaceful 
intercourse, or to adopt a protective and narrowly national 
policy. Bismarck chose the latter, and Wilhelm accentuated 
the choice, his aim being to make the nation as far as possible 
a self-sufficing unit. The result was that Germany in forty 
years of peace piled up great stores of industrial energy 
which threatened to burst their bounds. On the basis of 
protection vast industrial interests were built up, which 
could find no adequate markets imless other States let in 
German goods on easy terms; and this they would not do to 
a sufficient extent. Consequently the national or protective 
system led to an impasse. The new trade interests clamored 
for new markets, and the artisans concerned in them tended 
to become imperial expansionists. Thus the protective sys- 
tem adopted in 1880 served to strengthen the demands for 
further annexations. 

In fact the whole system gyrated in a vicious circle, some- 



INTERNATIONALISM igi 

what as follows: First the colonial party demanded colonies 
and protection. Then the colonies were stated to need a 
great fleet; while protection led to a mushroom growth of 
industries which helped to pay for the fleet. Industries, 
inflated to near bursting point, demanded new outlets, and 
all classes of the community, including many of the Socialists, 
believed it necessary to support that demand, which the 
army and fleet were prepared to satisfy. If Germany had 
persevered with the system of free exchange which makes 
the whole world an open market, the present cataclysm 
would probably have been averted; for though the Prussian 
Junkers would in any case clamor for war, their cries would 
have found no response in commercial circles, still less 
among the artisans of Germany. These last, I repeat, have 
been largely led astray from international ideals by a narrow 
commercialism, which made either for an internal explosion 
or a European war. In these islands we think of commerce 
as a bond of peace. It has acted far otherwise in Germany, 
where it takes on the guise of the old mercantile system, 
that fruitful parent of wars in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries. Indeed, over-speculation and over-production 
in Germany probably prompted the mad plunge of July, 
1914.^ Antwerp, Salonica, Constantinople, and Bagdad 
were to be the safety-valves for a surcharged industrial 
system. The conquest of Belgium and North-East France, 
Poland, Courland, and the Balkans seemed no difficult task 
in view of the confusion and weakness in the Entente States 
and Serbia. Commerce therefore joined hands with Milita-H 
rism, and German Socialists did not bestow on that suspicious ( 
union the expected shower of curses. 

Imperialism, of course, has sometimes assumed a threaten- 
ing guise in these islands; but on the whole it has aimed at 

^ See M. Millioud, The Ruling Caste and Frenzied Trade in Germany 
''Eng. transl., 1916). 



11 tu 

;ion^ 



192 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

safeguarding the Empire by the upkeep of an adequate fleet, 
the increase of which barely kept pace with that of the mer- 
cantile marine and of our colonial responsibilities. The 
r61e of the British fleet was necessarily defensive; that of 
the German fleet, on its very limited coasts, could, after 
the recent huge additions, well be offensive. In truth, the 
danger of the situation lay in the fact that the greatest 
military Power in the world aspired to rival on the oceans 
the Power for which maritime supremacy is the first law of 
existence. This difference in the situation of Germany and 
Great Britain was never admitted by the German people; 
and of late years their Sociahsts have ceased effectively 
to protest against the increase of their armaments, and that, 
too, despite the persistent refusal of the Berlin Government 
to accept proposals at the Hague Conferences for limitation 
of armaments.^ 

In view of the inaction of German Socialists at the greatest 
crisis in the modern world, it is of interest to glance at the 
resolutions which their delegates helped to pass at the chief 
Congresses of the Internationale. At Paris in 190 1 the -Con- 
gress engaged the Socialists of all countries to oppose votes 
for naval construction and colonial wars. At Stuttgart in 
1907 that able French writer, Gustave Herve, spoke ve- 
hemently against patriotism as an anti-social prejudice. The 
German leader, Bebel, opposed this on the ground that 
la patrie belongs more to the poor than to the dominant 
classes; and he warned Herve not to encourage the German 
General Staff against "the eventual enemy." For himself, 
he would not support war, but he supported defensive prepa- 
rations. Herve, in reply, said that his propaganda in France 

1 Bemhardi's claim, that Germany needs new colonies for her surplus 
population, is refuted by the official statement in the Preussische Jahr- 
biicher of March, 191 2, that her emigration had of late sunk to about 
20,000 a year. 



INTERNATIONALISM 193 

had disarmed the Government, which in case of mobilization, 
would be faced with insurrection and chaos. Bebel declared 
that there were two million Socialists in the German army, 
but gave no promise as to their conduct in case of a war, 
which, moreover, would further their cause better than ten 
years of propaganda. The Congress unanimously voted a 
motion, the chief clause of which appears at the head of 
this lecture. 

The Congress held at Copenhagen in 1910 rejected Keir 
Hardie's motion for a general strike of workers in case of 
war by 131 votes to 51. In the majority were Germany 
20 votes, Austria 18, Italy 15, America 14, etc.; in the mi- 
nority. Great Britain 20, France 12, Russia 7, Poland 5, 
etc. The delegates who met at the Bale Congress of No- 
vember, 19 1 2, were cheered by the sweeping triumphs of 
the party in the recent General Elections to the Reichstag 
(see ante, p. 191). Referring to the Balkan War then raging, 
the French leader, Jaures, called on the workers in Germany, 
France, and England to prevent any help going to Austria 
or Russia if those Powers came to blows. The German 
delegate, Hasse, for his party, promised to use all possible 
means to prevent a war.^ 

A sinister incident followed. In the hope of clearing up 
the Alsace-Lorraine Question 180 French Sociahsts went on 
to Berne, expecting to meet the same number of German 
delegates. They found a mere handful; for as one of them 
said to M. Vergnet: "Every German, from the highest 
to the lowest, considers that the Alsace-Lorraine Question 
can be reopened only on the battlefield. Let the French 
have no illusion on that head."^ The German Socialists 
also made no sustained protests against the barbarous treat- 

^ E. Royer, La Social-Democratie allemande et austro-hongroise el les 
Socialistes beiges, pp. 8-24. (17-18 Green St., Leicester Square, London). 
2 Vergnet, The German Engima, p. 138. 



194 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

ment of certain harmless civilians of Zabern by Gennan 
ofl&cers near the close of 1913. At that time the centenary 
celebrations of the German War of Liberation of 18 13 turned 
all heads in the Fatherland; and Germany, though she had 
no Napoleon to fear, whipped herself to a frenzy of warlike 
ardor, amidst which the no Socialist members of the Reich- 
stag raised scarcely a protest against the enormous votes 
passed in that autumn for military and naval purposes — 
votes which far exceeded all possible demands of a defensive 
character. Thereafter the Berlin Government was convinced 
that in any eventuahty the German Socialists would (to 
use a famous phrase of Bebel's) "fight to the last gasp for 
the Fatherland." Of course, the great Socialist had spoken 
thus only for a really defensive war. In July-August, 1914, 
his party condoned the action of the German Government 
when it precipitated the long-dreaded European conflict. 

Here it is well to recall the condition of Labor in the chief 
countries. The spring and summer of 19 14 were charac- 
terized by great unrest in France, Great Britain, and Russia. 
Strikes were numerous and others were threatened. Fre- 
quent ministerial crises at Paris and public admissions as 
to the unpreparedness of the army weakened public confi- 
dence. As for the United Kingdom, it seemed on the verge 
of civil war in Ireland. In Russia the strikes of the transport 
workers and others opened up the most serious prospects. 
It was in this state of affairs, when the Entente Powers 
hovered on the brink of social revolution or civil war, that 
Germany launched her ultimatums to Petrograd and Paris 
(July 31). Those acts alone, following on the insolent de- 
mands of the Austrian Government on Serbia, sufficiently 
revealed the aggressive designs of the Central Empires, which 
became clear as day when Germany sought to "hew her way" 
through Belgium. 

It is curious that, in the early stages of the diplomatic 



INTERNATIONALISM 195 

quarrel, the German Socialists raised protests against being 
dragged into war. On July 28 they held twenty-eight public 
meetings in Berlin alone for that purpose; and those meetings 
were even protected by the police. This fact seems to show 
that either the authorities had not yet decided in favor 
of war (it is thought that they decided on the evening of 
July 29) or that they were using the Socialists to lull those 
of Russia, France, and Belgium into false security. In 
either case the opposition of German Socialists to war thence- 
forth collapsed — why is a mystery. Were they coerced by 
the oflScials? Or were they terrified by the Muscovite bogey 
which Berlin officials magnified into colossal proportions? 
The latter supposition is incredible in view of the almost 
complete paralysis of the transport services in Russia. It 
seems, then, that the German SociaKsts must have followed 
the imperialist impulse which had won them over in and 
after the year 191 2. Whatever the cause, they all (though a 
few silently demurred) supported the war votes of August 4 
for a campaign which a mere tyro in diplomacy could see 
was of an offensive character. Nevertheless, Hasse read 
out the Socialists' declaration that they no longer had to 
pronounce on the cause of the war, but only to defend their 
frontiers; and on this wretched excuse he and his party gave 
the He to their protestations of several years past. His 
action was all the more disgraceful because on July 29, at 
a great meeting of Socialists at Brussels, he declared Austria's 
demands on Serbia a veritable provocation to war, and 
affirmed the conviction of the German people that its Govern- 
ment ought not to intervene, even if Russia intervened. 
It was then decided to hold a great International Congress 
at Paris on August 9 to concert general measures to prevent 
war.^ Did the knowledge of that fact induce the BerHn 

iRoyer, pp. 24-31: P. G. la Chesnais, "The Socialist Party in the 
Reichstag and the Declaration of War," ch. 3, shows that that party 



196 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

Government to hurry on its ultimatums to Russia and France 
on July 31? And why did not those obvious signs of hurry 
arouse the suspicions of the no Socialist deputies? Why, 
during the sitting of August 4th, did they not protest against 
the violation of Belgium's neutrality, which the Chancellor 
admitted to be a lawless act? Why, finally, did they not 
protest against the horrors perpetrated in Belgium in August- 
September? 

In justice, it must be said that the Socialist journal, the 
Vorwarts, protested both against the war and the barbarities 
of the army. Liebknecht, too, in December, 19 14, in oppos- 
ing the second war credits, declared the war to be an im- 
perialist and capitalist war for the conquest of the world's 
markets. By that time all German Socialists were aware 
of the absolute preparedness of Germany and the unpre- 
paredness of her opponents. Yet only sixteen Sociahst 
deputies joined in his opposition and protest. By degrees 
his following increased; and the majority of the German 
Socialist party has finally condemmed the policy of annexa- 
tion openly avowed in the time of fancied triumph. Some 
of its members, however, sought to persuade their French 
and Belgian comrades that France and Belgium ought to 
discuss terms of peace. Against this suggestion Bernstein, 
editor of the Bremer Burgerzeitung, strongly protested, point- 
ing out that, as France was attacked and part of her territory 
still occupied, discussions of peace by her would be a fatal 
act. Bernstein, Liebknecht, Kautzky, and Hasse published 
a Sociahst manifesto demanding peace, without annexations 

abandoned all opposition to war in its manifesto of July 31, ihat is before 
war became certain. The Vorwarts also wrote: "Social Democracy bears 
no responsibility for forthcoming events" — a forecast of the passivity 
of the party on August 4. On August i a German Socialist, Miiller, 
arrived at Paris, and sought tD induce his French comrades to oppose the 
war credits at Paris. 



INTERNATIONALISM 197 

or conquests. They and their manifesto were repudiated 
by the party, which thus associated itself with the poHcy 
of the Government (June, 1915).^ 

As for the French SociaHsts, though stimned for a moment 
by the assassination of their leader, Jaures, they soon took 
up the position which, assuredly, he would have taken up. 
In face of the unprovoked and treacherous stab of the Ger- 
mans at France through Belgium, they rallied as one man to 
the defence of la patrie. There was now no talk of a "general 
strike" such as might conceivably have stopped the war at 
its two sources, BerHn and Vienna. The treason of German 
SociaHsts to the Internationale consigned it for the present 
to the limbo of vain hopes; and nothing remained for their 
comrades in Belgium, France, Serbia, and Poland but to 
fall back on the old principle of duty to their several nations. 
The supreme lesson of the crisis of July- August, 19 14, is thaL 
Internationalism can succeed only when its votaries stand \ ^ 
firm in every nation; and that treason in one quarter involves 
collapse in all quarters. 

The genius of the Latin and Slav peoples was quick to 
discern the truth that in August, 19 14, the patriotic principle, 
which many of them had consistently derided, formed the 
only possible basis of action during the war; also that, in 
fighting for la patrie against its violators, they were taking 
the first step towards reaffirming the cosmopolitan ideal. 
Very noteworthy was the action of Gustave Herve. He at 
once became a flaming patriot, the champion of war to the 

^ Destree, pp. 17, 35-46. H. Bourgin, Les Responsabilites du Social- 
isme allemand, pp. 14-22. The assertion of Mr. Snowden, m. p., in the 
debate of February 23, 1916, that in no country of Europe (except 
Hungary and Italy) has Internationalism been so well kept alive as 
by the German Socialists, is incorrect. They have made some fine 
speeches, but their actions have been timid and far too tardy to influ- 
ence events, except in a sense favorable to Germany. 



198 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

death against Germany. The Belgian SociaHst, Destree, 
by his fiery denunciation of the Huns, did much to arouse 
Italy from her indecision and range her on the side of national 
liberty against an overweening Imperialism. In Great 
Britain the action of the workers has in general been marked 
by self-sacrificing devotion; but unfortunately one section 
of the Labor party has been blind to the wider issues at 
stake in this mighty struggle. Consequently there has not 
been here that unanimous rally to the nation's call which has 
lifted the whole life of France to a higher level. In France, 
despite a sharp rise in prices, there has not been a single 
strike since the beginning of the war up to mid-February, 
1916; but here as many as 698 strikes occurred during the 
year 19 15 alone. Of these several were due to merely local 
and sectional considerations, and many were highly detri- 
mental to the public service. The contrast is deeply humiliat- 
ing, and is not to be explained away by saying that France 
is invaded and we are not; for the same principle, the free- 
dom of the smaller peoples, is at stake everywhere. Inability 
or refusal to see this truth must discredit a portion of the 
British Labor party; and leadership in the international 
movement of the future will probably he with the Latin or 
Slav peoples, whose workers have almost unanimously shown 
the capacity of taking a wide, generous, and statesmanlike 
view of this unexampled crisis in the fortunes of the Euro- 
pean peoples. 

In Russia the Sociahsts were at first divided on the ques- 
tion of the war, as was natural in view of the despotic nature 
of their Government. But their leaders, notably Prince 
Kropotkin, soon perceived the seriousness of the German 
menace; and the party rallied enthusiastically to the national 
cause. At the International Socialist Congress held in London 
in February, 191 5, all the Russian delegates voted for the 
prosecution of the war until the rights of nationalities were 



INTERNATIONALISM 199 

restored and a federative system could be designed for the 
protection of the peace of Europe. 

That has become the aim of nearly all Socialists in this 
war; but, in spite of the increase of distress in Germany, 
her Socialist party continues to support the Government. 
In a debate early in January, 191 6, Liebknecht's anti-war 
group mustered forty-one strong; but the refusal of the 
German Chancellor to repudiate aims of annexation on either 
frontier failed to alienate the majority of the Socialists. For 
their part, the French SociaHsts demand that the future of 
Alsace-Lorraine shall be decided by a plebiscite in those 
provinces, a proposal scouted by their German confreres, 
who claim that that future is irrevocably bound up with 
German rule. On this rock, then, as well as that of Poland, 
Internationalism has foundered; and it will be observed that, 
while its ideal is championed by French and Russian Social- 
ists, those of Germany have in the main taken up the nation- 
alist standpoint and hold to the lands seized or conquered 
by Frederick the Great and Wilhehn I.^ In January, 
19 16, the SociaHst leader, Scheidemann, spoke strongly 
for peace and against annexations; but he uttered the 
fatal words: '^We refuse any thought of an annexation of 
Alsace-Lorraine by France, in whatever form it may be at- 
tempted." 

Another blow to the cosmopolitan movement is the utter"\ 
failure of neutrals to give effect to their obligations, con- I •, 
tracted at the Hague Conferences, for assuring the sanctity I 
of neutral territory and the rights due to non-combatants. ^ 
Though Germany's weaker neighbors were obviously ter- 
rorized into silence, yet the United States could safely have 
protested in the case of outrages so notorious as those com- 
mitted in Belgium and Poland. No protest has come from 

^ See the Temps for Nov. 6, 1915, and the Nation (London) or Jan. 15, 
1916. 



200 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

Washington; ^ and this dereliction of duty has rendered futile 
all the labor expended at the Hague Conferences, at least 
during this war. Here again, then, experience has proved 
the extreme fragility of the cosmopolitan ideals. At the 
first contact with a brutal and overweening Nationalism 
they vanished; and Germany has plunged the world back 
into a state of lawlessness and bestiality comparable with 
that of the Thirty Years' War. 

Men are asking everywhere: Can International Law and 
morality ever be re-established in such a way as to restore 
confidence? Pessimists and cynics deny it. On historical 
grounds, I dissent from this sombre estimate. For, as has 
appeared in these studies. Nationalism shows signs of having 
exhausted its strength except among the most backward 
peoples. This war is the reducHo ad ahsurdum of the move- 
ment in its recent narrow and intolerant form. The persistent 
attempt of one nation to overbear its weaker neighbors in 
order to achieve world-supremacy has sufficed to unite against 
it nearly all the world; and the frightful exhaustion which 
failure must entail will be a warning to would-be world- 
conquerors for centuries to come. Further, as we have seen, 
the more brutal and perfidious the violation of International 
Law, the stronger is the demand for the re-establishment of 
that law, with adequate guarantees for the future. In the 
domains of politics, finance, and law violent action always 
begets a strong reaction; and we may be sure that, when the 
base Nationalism of recent years has brought its protagonist 
to ruin, there will be a potent revulsion in favor of interna- 
tional ideals. In 1871 those ideals were foolishly championed 

1 In his Allocution of January 22, 1915, the Pope reprobated all acts 
of injustice, but in terms so general as to render the protest useless. 
Equally disappointing is the letter of Cardinal Gasparri, of July 6, 1915, 
to the Belgian Minister (L'AUemagne et les Allies devant la Conscience 
chritienne, ad fin., Paris, 1915). 



INTERNATIONALISM 201 

by the fanatics of Paris; in 19 14 they were foully betrayed 
by turncoats at Berlin. Let us hope that in the future good 
sense and good faith will work hand in hand for their realiza- 
tion. Already in the Hague Tribunal there exists the means 
for assuring the triumph of reason in place of force. If in 
due course all the European Powers consent to substitute 
the will to reconcile for the will to conquer, the task is half 
accomplished. 

Why should not the new Europe will to reconcile its in- 
terests? Every leading thinker now admits that the saner 
of the national aspirations (that is, those which prompt 
the political union of men of like sentiments) must receive 
due satisfaction. Belgium will be reconstituted, more glo- 
rious than before. France must recover Alsace-Lorraine. 
But the French and Belgian peoples, if they are wise, will 
not covet the Rhine boundary. Poland (the Poland of 1771) 
ought to emerge once more, free in civic affairs, though 
under the suzerainty of the Tsars. Italy will gather in her 
people of the Trentino and Trieste, but, if she is wise, will 
annex no Slovene or Slav lands further east. The Austrian 
and Eastern Questions are more difficult, but can be settled 
on a federative system based on Nationality and equality 
of rights. The Macedonian tangle should be settled by a 
commission appointed by the Great Powers, not by wrang- 
ling delegates of the peoples concerned. On the questions 
concerning Albania, Bulgaria, and Constantinople no pru- 
dent person will at present dogmatize; for they must be 
settled largely according to the course of events. This much 
is certain: the enormous importance of the issues now at 
stake ought to nerve every Briton to do his utmost so that 
the solution shall be thorough and shall not end in the 
ghastly fiasco of a stale-mate. Better five years of war than 
that. 

The new Europe which I have outlined ought to be a far 



202 NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY 

happier Europe than ever before. For the first time prac- 
tically all the great peoples will have sorted themselves 
out, like to like; and it may be assumed that all dynasties 
hostile to that healthy process will have disappeared. Then, 
after the attainment of civic freedom and national solidarity, 
the national instinct, which strengthens with opposition and 
weakens after due satisfaction, ought to merge in the wider 
and nobler sentiment of human brotherhood in the attain- 
ment of which it is only a preparatory phase. 



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